Going separate ways together

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan

“Ballad of the Broken Seas” (V2)

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THIS had the makings of the best Lee Hazlewood-Nancy Sinatra reincarnation since the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Jim Reid hitched his downer deadpan to Hope Sandoval’s vocal reverie on “Sometimes Always” back in 1994.

But while “Ballad of the Broken Seas” (in stores Tuesday) is a fine set of folk-tinged and blues-rooted art-pop, with ballads of haunted beauty in the mold of Cave and Cohen and some frisky, up-tempo diversions, ethereal Scottish chanteuse Campbell and whiskey-voiced Seattle refugee Lanegan remain disappointingly disconnected from each other.

Instead of working together on most of the songs, they pretty much take turns. Lanegan gets just some wispy vocal backing from Campbell on his “Do You Wanna Come Walk With Me,” then retires completely as she sings “Saturday’s Gone,” a charming salute to Marianne Faithfull. And so it goes. If only the album were all like “Honey Child What Can I Do?,” a sweet, psychedelia-sprinkled slice of ‘60s-style Southern soul. Here the two singers sound engaged with each other, and it’s the one time you can easily forget that they recorded most of the album on separate continents instead of going eye to eye together in the studio.

That method might get their voices together physically on the record, but it obviously doesn’t do much for the chemistry.

-- Richard Cromelin