Camera Obscura

In the video for “Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken,” Camera Obscura’s latest single, there’s a guy clad in a blaring yellow shirt, dancing around like the gayest dude you’ve ever seen. He’s with a hot blonde who’s wearing white knee-high stockings and some sort of vibrant pink ’60s get-up. The colors are vivid and everywhere. And in the middle of it all is vocalist Tracyanne Campbell looking constipated and sullen as she responds to fellow Scottsman Lloyd Cole’s 1985 song “Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?” Anyone familiar with Camera Obscura knows that’s a rhetorical question. The whole thing makes for some pretty jarring juxtapositions. Likewise, Camera Obscura’s songs take Campbell’s melancholy lyrics and swathe them in bright, sparkly, Technicolor pop, like a turd plunked down in the center of a strawberry cheesecake. But in a good way, of course. Give the act’s latest effort, Let’s Get Out of This Country, a few spins, and we think you’ll agree: Shit’s never been quite this tasty.