Their previous effort, 2006's Ballad of the Broken Seas (V2), was one of the year's more striking debuts - both artists had already well-established careers separately (for Campbell, Belle and Sebastian and Gentle Waves; for Lanegan, Screaming Trees. Queens of the Stone Age, Soulsavers, and Gutter Twins), but news of their collaboration came as a genuine surprise, given the first-glance differences between them.

As it turned out, the pairing couldn't have been more inspired. With their debut, the Lee/Nancy template was already firmly in place, and better yet, was convincing as all hell in its mid-/late-'60s wooziness. Sunday at Devil Dirt picks up where its predecessor left off, carrying many of the same threads and themes - sweeping strings, odd meshes of creepy and playful or sweet and sour - while adding a few welcome additions to the sound.

Campbell's songwriting is stronger than before, as are her thoughtful arrangements. She also seems to have hit upon a better production treatment for Lanegan's impossibly low nicotine growl, spotlighting its latent menace but making better use of its clash with her own disembodied-little-girl vocals. It's an impressive upping-the-ante from the duo: they don't just show off their fluency in Hazlewood's and Sinatra's language, but offer a few new ways to speak it as well.

Disc opener "Seafaring Song," with its circular acoustic guitar patterns and slow throbs of double bass joined by lush curls of orchestral strings, is a gentle piece of troubled British Isles-folk - recalling much of Campbell's hauntingly lovely Milk White Sheets (V2), only augmented by a sleepy Lee and Nancy repartee. The songwriter has clearly honed her abilities in crafting compositions, which defy easy decade (or century) categorization - much of the language of "Seafaring Song" could send listeners to the liner notes looking for "traditional/public domain" credits.

The same could be said to a slightly lesser extent for "The Raven," an ominous tale of longing a la '90s-period Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds delivered among imagery of ravens and meadowlarks - the nature references, along with now-archaic turns of phrase such as "chamber door," give the impression of this being an overhaul of a traditional folk ballad.

Until a closer listen to the lyrics is given. Once the broken-winged raven Lanegan rescues becomes a damsel with "sweet thighs of ruin," any possibility of this being an old strum-along goes right out the window. It's a deliciously Cave-like turn of phrase - poetic and lusty and unapologetically brash on the heels of being so quaint and genteel - and Lanegan rumbles them out in groaning, moaning measures. Meanwhile, Campbell sighs out a smattering of spectral-vixen sighs, cellos and violins crescendo and decrescendo, tubular bells clang away melodramatically, and the timpani bangs with end-is-nigh authority.

"Come On Over (Turn Me On)" - a hair-raisingly carnal duet with a careful swaying rhythm powered by a loping, jazzy bass pattern recalling Nina Simone's dramatic "Feeling Good" - is by far the most electrifying moment on the album, bristling with hot-night tension between the two vocalists before giving way to ecstatic release in the form of spiraling guitars and a surging orchestral arrangement. Lanegan burns with each syllable of the question, "Is it any wonder how we lie awake all night?" while Campbell whispers and murmurs her responses.

It's a potent blend of sweetness and aggression, and also one of the most compelling tributes to the Hazlewood/Sinatra blueprint. Equally captivating - but for different reasons - is the next track, "Back Burner," a spooky hoodoo in which Lanegan rolls out a groaning incantation over a 3 a.m. conga-and-shaker groove. Hammond organ gurgles away underneath otherworldly cries of the titular phrase from the London Community Gospel Choir - also known for bringing soulful testimony to join-ups with Blur and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - while an acoustic slide guitar creaks out a swampy call-and-response of its own.

An inspired channeling of Dr. John's 1968 candles-and-incense masterpiece Gris-Gris (Atco/Alligator/ Collector's Choice Music), the tune is thick with atmosphere and red-lidded momentum. The only contemporary act I can think of who is working the same aesthetic is Brightblack Morning Light. It's probably the least Hazlewood-like track on the album, but it points to an avenue the duo shouldn't hesitate to head down again in future efforts. Those who found Lanegan's mesmerizing flow on the Gutter Twins' track "All Misery/Flowers" to be a disc highlight will be just as taken by the possessed ramble here. Fantastic.

Campbell takes a star turn on "Shotgun Blues," a crackling slide-guitar blues in which the vocalist puts on her best sex-kitten pout for a nice and depraved sonic postcard from a pulp fiction romance. "Ooh daddy layin' on my bed / you'd better take that shotgun / and fill it full of lead," she moans like a good girl who has crossed over to the dark side.

The smitten-but-spoken-for duet "Keep Me in Mind, Sweetheart" is a wonderfully elemental tale of boy-meets-girl/boy-cannot-have-girl - offering little more than a sweet back-and-forth between the singers over the most basic of acoustic guitar strums and the occasional boom of upright bass, the track is arresting in its sincerity and simplicity.

Similar double-microphone gorgeousness arrives on the graceful duet "Trouble," a gradually unfolding acoustic number of brushed-drum rhythms and slow-buoying bass giving way to cascading beats and the sunset-glow of Hammond organ. Lyrically speaking, the song couldn't be simpler - focused mainly around the amorous confession, "trouble, oh trouble, haven't slipped a day in years," it's hardly the wordiest track on the disc, but it more than compensates in the depth of experience being conveyed. Then again, I suppose most love songs are like that - expressing so much with so very little. When Campbell and Lanegan declare, "When the world steals all hope from you / wonder where your dreams have gone to / You're the one I still belong to / listen why I love you," I admit I'm more than a bit touched.

The recent North American release of the disc - Sunday at Devil Dirt was released overseas in the spring - comes with a few lovely bonus tracks as well. Strange that they weren't included on the original release, as they stand just as proudly as anything on the "proper album." "Fight Fire With Fire," a playful duet boasting cheeky lyrics and a shuffling beat, offers Lanegan at his least imposing, while the near-lullaby "Asleep on The Sixpence," with its twinkling glockenspiel and orchestral flourishes, brings to mind the songwriting of early Tom Waits recordings.

The final number, "Hang On", is pure Velvet Underground-indebted loveliness, with Campbell floating out the most carefree of hushes over a simple electric guitar-and-tambourine groove. Sure, the jaded types might cry that this sort of thing has been done before, but I doubt they'll be able resist giving up a little shimmy to this cooler-than-cool garage shaker. I certainly couldn't.

Check out the duo on BBC's The Culture Show, performing "Keep Me in Mind, Sweetheart":