01 French Navy
02 The Sweetest Thing
03 You Told a Lie
04 Away With Murder
05 Swans
06 James
07 Careless Love
08 My Maudlin Career
09 Forest and Sands
10 Other Towns and Cities
11 Honey in the Sun

The title track is free on their site:
http://www.camera-obscura.net/

This is out April 21st.

Are "quite dark" and "brutal" your own descriptors?

Either way, I like the descriptors, though I haven't really liked what I've heard of this band in the past.

No. It's from their press release.

If you're going to make music for college girls you should at least be honest about it.

I like this song a lot. Nothing beats "Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken" though.

"Let's Get Out of This Country"

i like this band/im gay

If you don't want to register your e-mail to get the download I've uploaded it here.

I loved the entire last album so I'm anticipating great things from this album, but I'm also gay, so...

i really like everything this band has ever put out. but i'm a girl.

I loved the last album, I'm not gay or a girl but I was at a lesbian wedding a few weeks ago, does that count? Either way this is one of my most anticipated albums of the year. I'm gonna have to go ahead and say Country Mile was the killer track on the last album, such a hauntingly beautiful delivery.

yeah yo i love me some Camera Obscura

I love this band but I'm pretty sure my being gay is just incidental and not a cause or an effect of that fact. The first half of this year is being far too generous.

"French Navy" is insanely catchy.

I'm partial to "Books Written for Girls", myself.

But those descriptors don't get me too excited for this. I'd rather have something more cheerful from this group.

This is some epic shit.

Nothing but truth here.

This album does not disappoint. Track one is so good sometimes it's hard to make it to track 2....great harmonies and the strings, and the horns and then just when you think it can't get any better that big drum kicks in. I think i'm in love.

had to up it for a friend
http://www.sendspace.com/file/nvc7w7

Forest and Sands is my early favorite

Not sure I would use the word "epic" to describe Camera Obscura, but I'm still liking this album quite a bit. French Navy is indeed excellent.

anonymous question-asker: "john's shack, was Lets Get Out of This Country one of the supreme LPs of 2006?"

johnny shack: "yes my friend, yes it was."

well this certainly blows away the last record... can't say i like it more than Underachievers just yet, but damn it's great

It's fantastic. Orch pop confection coated in reverb. And even a name check of Chicago and Cleveland in the same line.

oh yuh. i'll throw my hat in for this one. wouldn't go for quite dark or brutal, no more so than the last one, which this just sounds like a continuation of, but they're so good at doing what they do it dudn't matter. all their songs are about heartache, loss and melancholia but there's a sense of humor and zest that never makes it feel dreary or too heavy. these guys are showmen and their songs acknowledge and revel in the inherent drama of performance. their bass player is also a master and their melodies are as good as anyone this side of the animal collective. is this one of the finest and most relevant bands making music today? oh, you better fuckin believe it. have they made another legitimately great album? sure have. does the somb look foolish for having a 15 page thread on neko case and a 2 pager for this one? sure do.

Really good. A lot like the last one. Great poppy songs like "James" will just never get old.

Sounds a lot like every other Camera Obscura record, but it's nice enough , nothing particularly exciting or new going on here, but fairly reliable

wow, i really liked Let's Get Out Of This Country. i'm only five songs into my first listen right now (thanks for the up, nagode) and i'm liking this just as much as that one.

here's to hoping they play a club show in Chicago and not a festival this summer.

i was a little let down by Country (it's really good, don't get me wrong) after how amazing their debut was, but this one is up there.

i've always been bored by biggest bluest hi fi and would never even think to say i was let down by let's get out of this country. but you are solace so perhaps when i hear the word amazing being tossed around when describing hi fi i need to re-visit.
but at this moment country and underachievers are so close as faves i won't even attempt to rank them. both get much rotation in the player. which makes it kinda funny i suppose that i will (most likely) never again entertain the idea of seeing this band live. i quite enjoyed the last show at the bottle but for some reason i just don't have a hunger to see this music played live again. i'm hoping to change my mind about that.

how is tracyanne live? hot? a seductress? does she pull off the vocals? the prospect of this band live is intriguing to me. country is one of the best pop albums of this decade. every track is stellar. i really need to give their earlier stuff more time too. i've had "James" in my head for the past two days. haven't listened to much new music this year, but "you broke me/I thought I knew you well" is my favorite line so far.

<3

err, i meant Underachievers Try Harder, sorry. i tend to forget about Hi-Fi, lol.

that one is def my fave (so far)

"Dark?" "Brutal?" It's not even April 1!

so this band is playing at the metro in like late may or something.

also, biggest bluest hi-fi is prob my favorite record of theirs, you guys are crazy. i still haven't heard this new one, though.

who's crazy again?

good tip on the Metro show.

Excellent song. Great vocals

they were the most boring show i saw at all of SXSW sadly... none of the band looked like they cared to be there whatsoever. my friend saw a diff SXSW set and said it seemed like they were forced to play for community service

hmm, that's kinda strange, cause when i saw them a few years ago, they seemed absolutely delighted to be in columbia, mo and were trying to round up a group of kids to go out drinking with them after the show. they were great that time.

I could totally see if they played a set full of "Country Mile"s I'd be bored as hell, but there's no way they'd do that so I'm still excited for this show.

yeah i've seen them before, in like 2003 and they were a lot of fun.

i'll be in Chicago going to Doves & Spinal Tap when they're in Mpls in May tho anyway :/

still haven't heard biggest bluest hi fi, but if it's anything like the b&s-aping underachievers (still a good record), country has it beat by at least one country mile.

"James" is pretty much heart-breaking. I am in love with this record.

I'll be seeing them in May. Hopefully.

yeah I don't know why this band isn't more popular in the indie community. they should be on the level of a decemberists or sufjan stevens. i feel like more people care about grizzly bear even. maybe it's because they never got a BNM or people just assume they're b & s ripoffs, even though they really asserted their own identity on Country. if you ask me, that album and Maudlin one-up or at least stand toe-to-toe with any non-Sinister b&s release, and I don't think Country is far off from that album either. i have to agree with allmusic's assessment that it is "one of the best indie pop albums ever."

I don't really know how music can induce this much pleasure. There are times when I just feel like playing songs fromt his album over and over again for hours. One time I played it on repeat on the little stereo in the back room for the entire shift.

totally unfamiliar w/ this band until just recently. the two songs i've heard on the radio from this record have been outstanding. me thinks i need to seek this one out, and probably other stuff by them too.

Pitchfork recognizes its greatness. Hope this boosts this album's profile a bit. I cannot speak enough to the greatness of this album.

Also according to the French Navy 7" the songs were recorded in Sweden, produced by a Swede. This makes so much sense.

it's been a while since i've gone to the record store specifically to pick up an album on its release day (come to think of it, it may have been the day the last camera obscura record came out in 2006), but i am planning to stop by and get this one on my way home tonight. this band is great.

record needs way more talk. there are some stunningly great songs on this album. they're in town this weekend and i just may go although my show going agenda is a bit jam packed in the next month or two.

Missed them in Newport on Thursday night, although I had a pretty good excuse... the birth of my first child. Any other reason and I would have been like, "Fuck it, I'm going to see Camera Obscura!"

My excuse is slightly more pathetic. I got the date wrong and went up with my friends on Wednesday, when the Felice Brothers were playing instead. And, I don't drive and they couldn't go on Thursday, so I missed out. Yay....

I bought this on vinyl today, tho.