REVIEW : Let's Just Be - Toronto Star

By Ben Rayner

Note : 2.5 of 4 stars

He's never scrawled "SLAVE" across his cheek or changed his name to a symbol, but Joseph Arthur already seems intent upon running with his emancipation from numerous major-label demands to a Prince-ly degree of self-indulgence. 

Arthur has hooked up with a quartet collectively dubbed the Lonely Astronauts for Let's Just Be, the first of two planned albums for 2007 unveiled scarcely six months after last year's self-released Nuclear Daydream. Interaction with others coaxes some surprisingly loosey-goosey fun from the insular singer/songwriter on "Diamond Ring" and the noisier, grunge-B-side sputterings of "Cocaine Feet" and "Good Life." 

The latter presages the self-immolative turn to come with "Lonely Astronaut," a 20-minute Velvet Underground-does-"Space Oddity" trial placed with bloody-minded purpose in the middle of the album. In keeping with that "jam band" ethos, the second half doesn't regain much of a focus until the "Diamond Ring" melody is stretched out to haunting effect on "Star Song." I'm a fan and I get the impression I'm being tested or prepared for something; newbies are still encouraged towards Come to Where I'm From.