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Having only come into contact with one other artist
from Peter Gabriel's Real World Records stable, the
rather underwhelming Pina, I was not overly excited
about listening to Joseph Arthur's new album. Much
more well known in his native USA, he is in fact one
of the odd ones out at Real World, being a mainstream
English language artist rather than a 'world
musician'. Let me say that Joseph Arthur is a highly talented musician, and
Redemption's Son is an album well worth buying. Inevitably, though, there is a but�
From what I have read and been told about the process
of making an album, the individuals involved in making
the record go to the studio taking approximately
twenty songs with them. They record these songs, and
then choose the best ten or so, which are put on the
album, while the rest become B-sides. I can imagine
the process of choosing songs to get rid of can be
very difficult, especially considering the care and
craft that has gone into them.
Now I mention all this because it seems that Joseph
Arthur got to the stage of having to select tracks to
put on Redemption's Son, but then just said , "Sod it,
I'm off down the pub". The album consists of sixteen tracks, and has a running time of an hour and a quarter.
No matter who the album is by, a record that lasts
that long is inevitably going to suffer from being so
unreasonably... well, long.
Infuriatingly, the album is already trying to do too
much. While Arthur's previous record, Come To Where
I'm From was produced by the legendary T Bone
Burnett, the production on this record is at times
truly dreadful. The production tries to
take the songs in directions which are at odds with
the very essence of the songs themselves.
On top of this, many tracks use a grating drum machine, not to mention an abundance of
harmonies of the banal type.
Comparisons
have been made with Beck, Gomez, Leonard Cohen,
Counting Crows and The Dave Matthews Band, and it
seems that here Arthur is trying to please fans of all
these bands, and more people besides.
All attempts to manufacture a poppy side to the record
are dismal failures. Rather it is on the more folksy
songs, with simple production and either a band or
just Arthur on his guitar, that the songs really work.
The tragic thing is that there are no bad songs at all
on this album, it is rather the way that they are
interpreted which is so dubious.
As for paring the album down, there are possibly ten
great tracks on Redemption's Son. Many of these come
in the latter part of the album, following the epic
central track, Termite Song, a track which
demonstrates just what Arthur can achieve when he goes
back to his troubadour roots, and sticks with
simplicity.
While I cannot recommend it unconditionally, what I
can say is that there is an incredible record waiting
inside Redemption's Son. All you have to do is be a
wee bit creative. So go buy it, listen to it, and put
those great tracks on a tape, leaving the duds behind.
And then listen to that tape. What you hear will be
something truly splendid. It could even be one of the
best albums of the year.
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