Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura cites 74 musical influences on its MySpace page—including Sheena Easton and MC5—but nary a mention of the Beach Boys. Which is odd, since “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” could be their anthem. But where Brian Wilson always looked forward, CO seems ever content mingling with its predecessors.

The Scottish five-piece is retroactive as ever on its fourth studio album with Ike-era beach-party jingles like “French Navy” and “Swans.” Kenny McKeeve’s honey-dipped guitar riffing on the latter is deeper in debt to Johnny Marr than the Treasury is to China. With a thick dossier stockpiled with charmingly pessimistic and self-effacing love poems, frontwoman Tracyanne Campbell continues to bemoan hapless romances—but now with a more satisfying blend of sincerity (“James, you broke me / I thought I knew you well”) and whimsy (“You kissed me on the forehead / Now these kisses give me a concussion”). The Phil Spector–esque army of chamber instrumentalists certainly enlarges CO’s sound, if it can’t quite heat up the record’s leftover ingredients.

“James” is the album’s sentimental centerpiece, swollen with woe-is-me bluntness, and by the time more introspective ballads “Forests and Sands” and “Other Towns and Cities” roll around, Tracyanne could use a goddamned bear hug.

To her credit, you’ll want to give her one. If at a glance these Glaswegians are loyal purveyors of edgeless, emotional art-pop, their charismatic frontlady’s vocals, like those of fellow Scot Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins, soar above baroque banality. Campbell’s ethereal pipes have roundly matured since their debut on Biggest Bluest Hi Fi in 2001, and she is now legitimately the diffident diva she’s aimed to be. The rest is forgiven.—Bryant Manning

Camera Obscura shoots into Metro Friday 29.

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