Camera Obscura’s first record was titled Underachievers Please Try Harder, the type of well placed, subtle humour that was embraced by a lot of European indie-pop bands of that period from Belle And Sebastian to Sweden’s Acid House Kings. Now that record is ten years old and they’ve released three other great ones, it takes on a whole new, more serious meaning.
Desire Lines is simply another twelve glistening love songs so perfectly executed you initially wonder if a world with too much Camera Obscura could even be a thing, but as it wears on it becomes clear that this album lacks a highlight as much as it does any sort of stumble.
When you compare it with recent records like Allo Darlin’s Europe who shot this style of music to dizzying heights last year, their consistently outstanding song craft starts to blur into mediocrity over the record’s 45 minutes.
On “Every Weekday” Tracyanne Campbell relates her familiar love sickness to their fate to never storm the charts and she has a point. It’s the sentiment of a band that knows as of June 2013, there is still no such thing as a bad Camera Obscura song, but there’s still no such thing as an outstanding one either.
Camera Obscura write love songs like they invented them and they’ll probably never stop, but you have to wonder if we’ll ever get that elusive incredible moment they once seemed so very capable of.
Desire Lines serves as an excellent entry point to this great band, but for long time fans it might feel a little too comfortable.
