Bow To Love sees Isobel Campbell reflect anxiously on the future of human evolution

But since parting ways with them over two decades ago, she has spent far more time producing solo recordings or collaborating in the intervening years, notably with the late Mark Lanegan.

There was also a decade of contentious label turmoil to contend with until she reemerged with her previous album There Is No Other (2020). That album presented a mix of personal and subtle psychadelic-folk tunes and on Bow To Love the mood remains personal but broadens out and is directed towards the modern crises we all face, although very pointedly from the perspective of being a woman. Post-Brexit turmoil, toxic masculinity, patriarchal inequities, and modern technology all feature heavily as Campbell reflects on life’s ‘horrors’ in a seeming attempt to purge them or at least expose them and heal. It’s not just a litany of the plagues of modern living though there are legitimate pleas for solutions and progress.

Right from the off “Everything Falls Apart” launches the album with a gentle, mannered inquisition. “Are you strong enough? / Are you good enough? / Can you hang in tough? / Man did life get rough / Actually, new reality, we are so in flux / Have you had enough?” Campbell intones. As the album stretches out what at first seems exasperated and even hectoring in this song and in some others forms a wider narrative of identity, self, and value.

“Do or Die” espouses Yoda-like wisdom through Campbell's urging herself to write a song, “Do or do not there is no try.” It’s a pretty meta-take with billowing strings and orchestration.

“Spider to the Fly” and “Second Guessing” stick to a folkier sound as they navigate issues of relationship anxiety, abuse or trust, that add some underlying teeth to the soft tone but are both dispatched rapidly enough in a rather disposable sense. As if eager to focus on more immediate concerns in “Bow To Love” where “It’s not enough to bow to love” to feel free”. She sings about the messiness, cruelty, and hurt that love can bring. It’s complex, we know, life is not a hazy, hand-holding meet-cute ad infinitum, so this seems like a well-trodden path thematically.

The future fear is in full grip by the time the hypnotically looping 60s vibe of “4316” bounces into sparkling view. “I don’t hate anyone / Not even you / This, this dream we’ve been riding on / The emperor’s clothes that he dons / For the world to see through”, she sings projecting into a new world where disposable attention and vapidity of life spent online, or at least succumbing to tech ‘advances,’ leads to a dissatisfied future human species. “Dopamine” follows immediately after and soothes the imminent despair somewhat but as a centerpiece of the album it’s akin to spotlighting the “Old man yells at cloud” Simpsons meme.

Campbell even addresses this in “Keep Calm and Carry On” but the album continues to spiral at this point on “Saturdays Son” which states, “We’re at the crossroads / create and reload”. There are wishes for a great re-set, a pause and an examination of where we are. It’s a big ask in this immediately reactive society when cancellation and failure to accept nuance is now the norm. It’s also not an unreasonable thing to request from any rational person's viewpoint. The confusion is self-evident though, we’re told to “Take the Poison” in one breath, then in the unironic Dire Straits cover that closes the album, “Why Worry”, there’s a duality of resignation and hope to turn a corner, very soon.

For such a delightful-sounding album, full of subtle touches, glimmering adornments and equally sparse folky offerings there are some weighty themes. Campbell’s lyrical framing of our current existence on this planet might be an accurate portrayal personally but it tends to dismiss a lot of younger voices and minds with its dystopian tone. It makes her seem detached but only in the way any older generation becomes luddites in their distaste for ‘modern things’. Her less noisy attempt to rage against the machine doesn’t feel angry enough, or like an effective way to turn the ship around either, but there’s certainly a conversation to be had.