REVIEW : Our Shadows Will Remain - RELEVANT magazine.com
He’s been called “one of the last true artists,” and if true art comes from real pain and struggle, Joseph Arthur is justly referenced. He’s one of those people who makes art not for money, fame or even enjoyment, but because his survival demands it. In more ways than one (let’s hope not in every way) he is like Elliott Smith: a passionate singer/songwriter who bled his wounds in song till he had nothing left. These artists offer tortured art as anesthetic for a tortured world, and we thank them for that. We gain much through their pain.
Joseph Arthur has given listeners such catharsis for years through his exquisite brand of experimental folk rock. He’s one of those highly respected musicians (so much so that Peter Gabriel signed him as the first American artist on his Real World label) that never seem to get the audience they deserve (can anyone say Over the Rhine?). Arthur broke on the scene in 2000 with Come to Where I’m From, an albumEntertainment Weekly named the best of the year. With 2002’s Redemption’s Son, Arthur went more mainstream with a straight-up folk album full of hook-laced ballads and metaphorical lyrics. He landed atop several critics’ year-end lists and enjoyed college-radio success, but still didn’t break through to the untapped hordes of Beck-loving hipsters waiting for exactly what he’s got.
After a summer of movie-soundtrack exposure (Shrek 2 and Saved!), Arthur has a new record (released Oct. 12) that could be the one to pave his way to stardom. Our Shadows Will Remain, though much bleaker than Redemption’s Son (a very God-centric flirtation with peace), finds a musical balance and bravado that is exhilarating. There are moments of low-key beauty and raucous exhortation, and sometimes within the same song.
The album opens with the gorgeous, all-too-brief prelude, “In Ohio,” which segues into an uncharacteristically optimistic track, “Can’t Exist.” The song is an aggressive, synth-fueled masterpiece with a killer hook: Oh Sister don’t be scared/ A thousand times or more/ I’ve walked away alive/ On my feet again. Whatever hope there is here dwindles in later songs, such as “Failed” and the trip-hoppy “Wasted” (I need to find a place to cry … ). It all but vanishes in the bittersweet piano melodies of “Puppets,” which alludes to his ongoing struggle with freedom versus fate (“Echo Park” is the freedom song of the record).
Indeed, Shadows seems to find Arthur at some of the lowest points of his life. Suicide is mentioned several times, and the God that seemed so near in Redemption’s Son is much more remote this time around. Thematically the album deals with redemption again, though not from any divine source. Arthur’s only glimmer of hope resides in the idea that the shadows of our lives and loves will survive even though we do not. Songs like the radio-friendly centerpiece “Even Tho” and the haunting after-life confrontation “Leave Us Alone” (the last, possibly bleakest song on the album) form the skeleton of this proposition.
With intense emotional defeat comes humility and naked truth, however, and that is what gives a measure of hope to the album. “I Am” offers a moderately positive message about living in the present rather than the past and future (You are not a person/ Nor are you what you see/ Beyond this world you live in/ Beyond your memory), and “Devil’s Broom” reaches a place where divine plea is the only solution: I just pray that the lord is gonna come down and take me/ Sweep me off this floor with the devil’s broom.
But the happiest song on the album is also the most heartbreaking. “A Smile That Explodes” comes near the end of the 45minute purge, at a point where Arthur seems utterly defeated and ready to surrender … to something: My room is too small/ To get by without the help of alcohol/ Pin my arm to the wall/ Now I’m too gone to fight/ Not afraid to fall. The bare-bones piano and vocal track is almost otherworldly in its beauty and transcendent honesty. It is about a man at the end of his rope, ready to be rescued by love or at least memories of it.
After all that baggage the album might seem like it’s not worth it, but I urge you to listen anyway. Joseph Arthur is legit, and with Sufjan Stevens and others—the future of bleeding-heart progressive folk. I saw one of Arthur’s legendary live shows (legendary for his insane onstage sound looping skills) at Hollywood’s Largo bar last month and what I witnessed was something I could only describe as a sublime worship experience. I witnessed a man clearly in turmoil, someone possibly (hopefully not) performing for the last time (as if I were seeing Jeff Buckley or Kurt Cobain in their latter days). It was an experience that left me with the urgency that I now pass on to you: tell all your friends, spread the news, buy the albums; this is an artist to watch.
Joseph Arthur has given listeners such catharsis for years through his exquisite brand of experimental folk rock. He’s one of those highly respected musicians (so much so that Peter Gabriel signed him as the first American artist on his Real World label) that never seem to get the audience they deserve (can anyone say Over the Rhine?). Arthur broke on the scene in 2000 with Come to Where I’m From, an albumEntertainment Weekly named the best of the year. With 2002’s Redemption’s Son, Arthur went more mainstream with a straight-up folk album full of hook-laced ballads and metaphorical lyrics. He landed atop several critics’ year-end lists and enjoyed college-radio success, but still didn’t break through to the untapped hordes of Beck-loving hipsters waiting for exactly what he’s got.
After a summer of movie-soundtrack exposure (Shrek 2 and Saved!), Arthur has a new record (released Oct. 12) that could be the one to pave his way to stardom. Our Shadows Will Remain, though much bleaker than Redemption’s Son (a very God-centric flirtation with peace), finds a musical balance and bravado that is exhilarating. There are moments of low-key beauty and raucous exhortation, and sometimes within the same song.
The album opens with the gorgeous, all-too-brief prelude, “In Ohio,” which segues into an uncharacteristically optimistic track, “Can’t Exist.” The song is an aggressive, synth-fueled masterpiece with a killer hook: Oh Sister don’t be scared/ A thousand times or more/ I’ve walked away alive/ On my feet again. Whatever hope there is here dwindles in later songs, such as “Failed” and the trip-hoppy “Wasted” (I need to find a place to cry … ). It all but vanishes in the bittersweet piano melodies of “Puppets,” which alludes to his ongoing struggle with freedom versus fate (“Echo Park” is the freedom song of the record).
Indeed, Shadows seems to find Arthur at some of the lowest points of his life. Suicide is mentioned several times, and the God that seemed so near in Redemption’s Son is much more remote this time around. Thematically the album deals with redemption again, though not from any divine source. Arthur’s only glimmer of hope resides in the idea that the shadows of our lives and loves will survive even though we do not. Songs like the radio-friendly centerpiece “Even Tho” and the haunting after-life confrontation “Leave Us Alone” (the last, possibly bleakest song on the album) form the skeleton of this proposition.
With intense emotional defeat comes humility and naked truth, however, and that is what gives a measure of hope to the album. “I Am” offers a moderately positive message about living in the present rather than the past and future (You are not a person/ Nor are you what you see/ Beyond this world you live in/ Beyond your memory), and “Devil’s Broom” reaches a place where divine plea is the only solution: I just pray that the lord is gonna come down and take me/ Sweep me off this floor with the devil’s broom.
But the happiest song on the album is also the most heartbreaking. “A Smile That Explodes” comes near the end of the 45minute purge, at a point where Arthur seems utterly defeated and ready to surrender … to something: My room is too small/ To get by without the help of alcohol/ Pin my arm to the wall/ Now I’m too gone to fight/ Not afraid to fall. The bare-bones piano and vocal track is almost otherworldly in its beauty and transcendent honesty. It is about a man at the end of his rope, ready to be rescued by love or at least memories of it.
After all that baggage the album might seem like it’s not worth it, but I urge you to listen anyway. Joseph Arthur is legit, and with Sufjan Stevens and others—the future of bleeding-heart progressive folk. I saw one of Arthur’s legendary live shows (legendary for his insane onstage sound looping skills) at Hollywood’s Largo bar last month and what I witnessed was something I could only describe as a sublime worship experience. I witnessed a man clearly in turmoil, someone possibly (hopefully not) performing for the last time (as if I were seeing Jeff Buckley or Kurt Cobain in their latter days). It was an experience that left me with the urgency that I now pass on to you: tell all your friends, spread the news, buy the albums; this is an artist to watch.
[Brett McCracken listens to music and watches movies all day. Once in a while he eats pizza to satiate his hunger.]
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