As much as Ballad of the Broken Seas is touted as a ‘duets’ album, it reeks of the whiskey-soaked breath of Mark Lanegan. While Scottish lass Isobel Campbell’s contribution is hardly negligible, she’s very much the ‘junior partner’ in this twosome.

From the moment Lanegan’s deep baritone kicks off “Deus Ibi Est” he leads the way – on the opening song, Campbell merely provides the Latin chorus. Comparisons to Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra have been bandied about, and not entirely unfairly; the scarred sounds of shuddering guitar found throughout Ballad of the Broken Seas on cuts like “The False Husband” combine perfectly with strings, as the two combatants trade verses.

Like that song, Lanegan’s “Revolver”, the pretty “Honey Child What Can I Do?”, and the duo’s cover of Hank Williams’ “Ramblin Man” find them interlinking voices or trading off against one another, and this is when Ballad of the Broken Seas is at its most interesting. The title cut doesn’t work as well, and nor do any of the other numbers with Lanegan singng to waltzing gait; instead, Campbell works best on these numbers, as shown on “Saturday’s Gone”.

When Lanegan is solo, as on the expressive closer “The Circus is Leaving Town”, he sounds nothing short of incredible, as he tends to do. But Campbell is less effecting; she simply can’t convey the sadness inherent in Lanegan’s sombre baritone. Her high timbre is pretty, but it simply isn’t nearly as captivating – to put it in perspective, the instrumental version of BMX Bandits member Jim McCulloch’s “It’s Hard to Kill a Bad Thing” is just as nice for being left vocally bare, and letting the strings guide it.