This feels like a critical moment for Camera Obscura. These most unassuming six men and women of Glasgow, for so long seen as merely Belle & Sebastian's Mini-Me playthings - Stuart Murdoch produced their first album - made the great leap forward in 2006. Let's Get Out Of This Country came with a single that got radio interested and saw them cast off their unassuming past and fully embrace the Wall Of Sound. Marrying uplifting 60s-tinged skewed pop to Tracyanne Campbell's lyrical ideas of vulnerable romance and empathetic self-absorption. Now they're on 4AD and Steve Wright is playing the first single.If there isn't anything to match the glorious 'Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken' on My Maudlin Career, it's only because that song seemed such a joyous under pressure casting off of previous assumptions and approach. If anything it's more consistent then that last album, adapting the girl group swoon and countrified lilt not necessarily to disappear off in another stylistic direction but to refine the elements and create a sound that is entirely theirs. Producer Jari Haapalainen was also behind the desk for much of The Concretes' work, overseeing not dissimilar sweeping sentiments of love and regret. But the two bands never seem to be singing from the same sonic hymn sheet largely because Campbell's voice is just far superior at expressing heartfelt bittersweet sentiments.Interestingly, at least until the Motown strings really kick in, opener and single 'French Navy' is as close as they've come (for a while at least) to those Belle & Sebastian comparisons. Hints of Orange Juice and Felt added to Northern Soul via Phil Spector drums help to create something that indirectly reminds this writer of 'The Wrong Girl' off Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant. Meanwhile Campbell swoons over new love, the chorus declaring "I wanted to control it/but love, I couldn't hold it". Then, on the second track 'The Sweetest Thing', she's singing about "trying to fall out of love with you... I don't know what else to do", even if the outcome isn't entirely clear, the narrator is conflicted between hope and past experience. If the album has a theme it's just that latter notion. Campbell dares not to get her hopes up too high knowing from bitter experience. Watching personal events conspire to fulfil her fears - in fact she has suggested that these are less lyrics, more straight up documentation of a period in her life.Matching upbeat arrangement to downbeat lyrics is an old trick but very few have learnt to use it as well as Camera Obscura - even 'Swans' with its circular riff and glockenspiel aided hook reeks of indistinct heartbreak. 'Away With Murder' sketches out her "feeling something's going wrong/I put my thoughts in a letter to send it when I'm feeling strong" over a Grand Old Opry beat which is much steadier than Tracyanne's emotions. It forms a stately piece of melancholy in which Campbell admits it's "been hard to be strong with the thought of this going on" albeit having already confessed "I told you all along there was no point looking to me". 'James' is more lyrically direct in its rejection letter, Campbell telling the titular ex "you broke me, I thought I knew you well". Following up, country ballad 'Careless Love' regretfully screws down the lid of the relationship: "I've been really struggling to see this thing through to the end... I don't think we can really be friends, but I'll try again." Cue skyscraping strings and pan out from disconsolate figure, which returns with remorse on the spare, folky 'Other Towns And Cities', before closing track 'Honey In The Sun' and its defiant, brass aided rush of a chorus over which she admits "I wish my heart was as cold as the morning dew"."My maudlin career must come to an end/I don't want to be sad again" Campbell sings through the tears on the chorus of the lilting 'My Maudlin Career', the closest thing on this album to the last. Then again she also confesses "in your eyes there's a sadness enough to kill the both of us/Are those eyes overrated? They make me want to give up on love". Those lyrics act as this tremendous album in microcosm. While there's nothing here that would scare the horses of those that adored Let's Get Out Of This Country, it's the sound of a band who are tighter and far more aware of what they're doing. They're also more able to carry it off with the minimum of fuss. Aided by a panoramic production, exhibiting a level of confidence that's the exact opposite of the lyrical content. While messy breakups aren't something to look forward to, if Campbell's declaration that much of this album is based on fact, then it's left her at her genuine best. Such praise for her evocations of insecurity won't help her self esteem much, granted, but for her band it seems to have spurred them on to even greater heights. 88% Camera Obscura on Myspace