Joseph Arthur Our Shadows Will Remain

Haven't heard it yet, but I'm looking forward to it. I played the heck out of Come to Where I'm From when I first heard it, and I picked up Redemption's Son but I thought it wasn't near as good. I have this little live set he did in Dallas a few years ago that is extraordinary. I'm hoping on the new one he isn't accessible and poppy to the point where he sounds like every other singer-songwriter, though.

I hope I didn't mislead you. The album is not radio friendly or a sell out, just more ear friendly to me.

Joseph Arthur is someone I was fairly distrustful of for a long time, probably because of that ugly pony tail he was wearing on the cover of his first album; also, while i liked that record well enough, the lyrics were pretty juvenile and OTT at times ("put my daddy on prozac" in particular). He also seemed to come out of nowhere and get people like Eno on his album which struck me as unfair and suspect. But he grew a lot with each subequent record, and Redemption's Son is excellent. He seems to have a decent core audience but his music, although hardly weird or difficult, doesn't slot into any genres very easily; it's too produced and rootsy to be indie, too sombre and introspective to go to AAA or AOR stations. There always has been a fair amount of spiritual content in his songs, I'm not sure if he's Christian or lapsed (likely) but I can't see this playing much for the Christian rock crowd either. Anyway I haven't really listened to the new one yet, but was just reminded of him after seeing the film Saved last night (which used In the Sun to good effect).

should I see him live? he plays solo, correct? I've heard both that he's amazing and terrible so I don't know. I'm really not a huge fan but I am curious.

the new album is fantastic, albeit quite a bit more poppy than the previous two.