REVIEW : Nuclear Daydream - The Guardian

By Dave Simpson

Fri 7 Sep 2007

Joseph Arthur doesn't seem in a hurry to get anywhere. Now on his fifth album, having won the patronage of Michael Stipe, Peter Gabriel and scores of music critics along the way, the native New Yorker still sounds as if he can barely be bothered to get out of bed.

Still, his languid, croaky whine is peculiarly well matched to songs that seem to document some sort of malaise, whether post-romantic collapse or, judging from the number of references to needles in the lyrics, something darker. It's difficult to decide whether Arthur is the sufferer or the narrator, but he gradually sculpts love, death and a bare minimum of chords into something affecting.

Don't Give Up on People could be a John Lennon recording from beyond the grave, while the strangely moving title track is like a dark negative of the Stones' Wild Horses, with romantic yearning swapped for relationship mourning.



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