The word “maudlin” means weakly emotional or foolishly sentimental. “Maudlin” stems from the various paintings of Mary Magdalene who is always depicted as weeping. My Maudlin Career, the fourth album from Camera Obscura, lives up to the title with foolishly sentimental songs about love, relationships and fate. By not focusing on the instrumentals, Camera Obscura has created a very uninteresting album.

With such an interesting name (a camera obscura was an optical device that contributed to the development of photography), one would think a group would be equally inventive and intriguing with their songs. Though this is only half correct for My Maudlin Career, which gets a gold star for being inventive, as far as intriguing goes, the album will unfortunately remain with only the one gold star.

With its indie sound, My Maudlin Career is very different from mainstream music. No song ever sounds the same; the instruments vary within each track and every melody or tune comes out on top for being unique. Some of Camera Obscura’s songs play up the organ, in others the trumpet is heard above all else. Tracyanne Campbell (guitar, vocals), Carey Lander (piano, organ, vocals), Kenny McKeeve (guitar, mandolin, harmonica, vocals), Gavin Dunbar (bass), Lee Thomson (drums) and Nigel Baillie (trumpet, percussion) create a fresh new sound with their wide array of instruments embedded in each song.

However, the vocals are nothing compared to the instrumentals (which outshine the vocals by far), and because the vocals are the main focus, many potentially good songs are ruined. The band is from Scotland, so that could be the reason the lyrics are incomprehensible. But whatever the reason, the vocals are jumbled and simply not that intriguing. Campbell and Lander do not have very compelling voices: Their monotonous voices detract from any interest in the album and simply bore the listener.

Only when reading the lyrics does one realize how unique they are. Unfortunately, they are lost in the jumble of tiresome vocals.

Perhaps with more powerful voices or a wider range of notes, Camera Obscura could have made lyrics like “They make me want to give up on love/ I’ll brace myself for the holiness/ Say hello to feelings that I detest/ This maudlin career has come to an end/ I don’t want to be sad again,” sound interesting.

Overall, Camera Obscura’s newest album My Maudlin Career is dull and uninspiring. Had the band focused more on the instrumentals and less on the voices of the band members, perhaps they would have been more successful. Camera Obscura should take heed of their own lyrics, “Like you could catch affection,” because they will soon find out that affection is not what will be found from anyone but loyal fans.

2 stars out of 5.