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My Maudlin Career is the kind of record that exists to reward those both mad, and sad, in love.
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Occasionally shrouded in sadness but with happiness always beating from its core, My Maudlin Career lays bare the sweet melancholy of love.
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It’s an infectious album that blooms repeatedly throughout, unfolding in muted, endearing aural hues; simultaneously sad and celebratory, and always charming.
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Maturity is a central concept to Camera Obscura--Campbell's found it in her singing, but in her lyrics, the search continues. The asymmetries in her personality give her songs their distinct character.
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Clever, catchy, and moody, Maudlin Career is what contemporary pop music should be. It is wholly as satisfying as Campbell is unsatisfied.
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FilterThe echo-chamber drums and forlorn strings crescendos that epitomize Camera Obscura's discography blossom on standouts like the Ronettes-like single 'French Navy,' country-rocker 'Forest And Sands,' and full-band travelogue pouter 'The Sweetest Thing.' [Spring 2009, p.100]
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If My Maudlin Career falls a tiny bit short of "Let's Get Out of This Country," and it does, it's only because that album was so wonderful.
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This, their fourth album, feels like a breakthrough, more polished and poised to build on cult 2006 single 'Lloyd, Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?'
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The band’s finest work, My Maudlin Career continues the pop rush we’ve come to expect from Camera Obscura but also develops the band’s sound and identity in significant ways.
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The result is a flawless blend of sunny pop, Motown, blues and jazz with the cleanest production in Camera Obscura's catalog.
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My Maudlin Career offers soul and sophistication in abundance.
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My Maudlin Career is a wonderful set of songs and can deservedly sit alongside Let’s Get Out Of This Country while showcasing how far Camera Obscura have come since their patchy yet charming début, Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi.
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MojoHer Dusty-meetsNancy tones glide as imperiously over violin-caressed opener 'French Navy' as on lustrous indie-country upgrade 'You Told A Lie,' reaching sublime lvels of heartache on the Spectoresque title track. [Jun 2009, p.109]
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Q MagazineCampbell's gorgeous, heartbreaking and--well--maudlin songs deserve to be heard by an audience far wider than Camera Obscura's current cult- indie-pop devoteees. [Jun 2009, p.119]
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As a unit, the group amassed some of the best music of their careers onto this singular, ‘effusively sentimental,’ career.
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My Maudlin Career is just such a uniformly endearing record. It’s sentimental, yes, but pleasantly so, charming in its own little way.
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Over the course of one great LP (2004’s "Underachievers Please Try Harder"), one pretty great one (2006’s "Let’s Get Out of This Country"), and now My Maudlin Career, Camera Obscura have arrived at a sound centered on Campbell’s self-reflective loneliness and their lifting of all the best of ‘60s music--a sound they own by themselves.
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It's the musical equivalent of the death of Bambi's mother: exquisitely rendered, but, once experienced for the first time, you need to steel yourself for subsequent visits.
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Luckily, for both the album and its audience, the band's perseverance results in hits more often than misses.
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On their fourth album, this Scottish indie-pop band's fondness for woeful heartache and Phil Spector–esque production reaches a poignant peak.
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My Maudlin Career may not be the kind of album that breaks new ground or does anything particularly forward-looking musically, but what it lacks in that department it more than makes up for with intelligent pop hooks and some of the loveliest string arrangements of recent memory.
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Under The RadarWhile the twinkling piano of the title track illustrates the sort of contained feeling that reminds us why the bar was set so high to begin with. Only the dull 'Careless Love' and unnecessary album closer 'Honey In The Sun' detract. [Spring 2009, p.65]
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Alternative PressIt might sound formulaic, if it weren't so gorgeous. [Jun 2009, p.102]
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The songs work best when the band sticks to the balsa-wood wall of sound formula; they get into a spot of trouble when trying something different.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 29 out of 33
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Mixed: 0 out of 33
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Negative: 4 out of 33
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Aug 11, 2018
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Feb 14, 2013
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JamesBJul 16, 2009Pure unbridled bliss! So melodic, so beautifully sad, so absolutely awesome!