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After a few years of Devendra, Joanna and the like, a folk artist needs to transcend the treacly lyrical world of maidens and seafarers and own true loves with unusual instrumentation or particularly striking melodies if they want to engage listeners. Fresh off her seductively dissonant collaboration with Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees fame, Isobel Campbell’s voice and melodies are beguiling as ever. But you can’t help but get tripped up on platitudes like, “as love grows older, it still grows colder” or affected references to acorns, birds and castles. ‘Cachel Wood’ has appealingly innocent, mournful harmonies, and the hypnotic of ‘Are You Going to Leave Me?’ hearkens back to ‘Is It Wicked Not to Care?’, Campbell’s signature song from her Belle and Sebastian days. The record fares best on tracks peppered with cello or harmonica or drums; when left to her own devices with merely a guitar (or worse, a capella), Milkwhite feels a bit anemic. Nevertheless, the bright spots show Campbell hasn’t lost her haunting charm.
