REVIEW : Nuclear Daydream - Toronto Star

By Ben Rayner 

Note : 3 out of 4

A seemingly endless run of major labels has squandered and rejected Arthur's talents since his Peter Gabriel-approved 1997 debut, Big City Secrets, so it's hardly a shock that he's started his own imprint to release his fifth album, Nuclear Daydream. What's puzzling is that this route is forced upon an artist of such obviously high calibre who, makes music that, with just the right marketing nudge, could at any time have penetrated the edges of the mainstream. 

Whatever. He's ours, then. Ironically, though, in paring his ambitions back down to fit indie-dom's modest budgetary confines after the intriguing expansions of Redemption's Son and Our Shadows Will Remain, Arthur now has in hand the near-populist sequel to 2000's brilliant Come To Where I'm From that he's resisted ever since. Sonically, the two records are definite siblings, treading a barren, druggy Rust Belt strip between Cohen and Cobain that never loses track of the tune, whether mired in the echoing murk of "Black Lexus" or surrendering the crisp-but-ambiguous melodicism of "You Are Free." 

And Arthur excels at both murk and melody: "Electrical Storm" is acoustic and shattering in the Mark Kozelek sense, as one might expect from a chap with Arthur's sad-boy reputation, but the uncharacteristically light-of-touch "Enough To Get Away" — whose title seems to be referring to pills — proves he's becoming nearly as skilled as Lou Reed in employing pure pop as subversion. Either way, he gets under your skin. Joseph Arthur, with a full band in tow for the first time, plays the Mod Club on Saturday night.