[4/5] When we last heard from Isobel Campbell on 2005's Ballad Of The Broken Seas, she was making music for manic depressives-no shocker, considering her collaborator was brooding alt-rock wreck Mark Lanegan. Recorded in the wake of that Mercury Prize-nominated project, Milkwhite Sheets finds the former Belle And Sebastian chanteuse and cellist in a decidedly more beautiful place. This time out, Campbell is obsessed with antiquated folk, mixing gorgeously rendered traditional ballads with five pastoral originals. The singer's great victory here is that while her soft Glasgow lilt gives Milkwhite Sheets a decidedly Celtic flavor, she never sounds like an indie-pop Enya. Instead, warm acoustic guitars and spookily ethereal vocals add up to understated soundtrack music for a road trip through the Scottish countryside. Beautiful as the Highlands might look from the passenger's seat, they won't have anything on Campbell's haunting version of "Loving Hannah." (V2; v2music.com) Mike Usinger
 Official Website: http://www.v2music.com
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