Ben Arthur – Edible Darling

 

Sound: B     Music: B

 

 

Ben Arthur is poised to establish himself as a solo artist, albeit through the independent route, almost as if it were the old days of the record business.  Due to the crisis with the major labels, i.e. they cannot seem to sign seriously good talent these days, so the kind of action you would see in the 1970s (Punk notwithstanding) still happened on major labels.  Edible Darling (2004) seems to get this, as Arthur produces an album of very interesting post-Beatles styled Pop/Rock songs mixed in with modern sensibilities that still manage to be worthy of the era.

 

The tracks are as follows:

 

1)     Mary Ann

2)     Tonight

3)     Broken-Hearted Smile

4)     End Of The Day

5)     Mercy

6)     Instrumental #3

7)     Keep Me Around

8)     Edible Darling

9)     Bloomed

10)  Sight Of Your Tears

11)  Wake

12)  Jesus On My Knees

 

Unlike Beck, who is doing the top of current styles and staying three steps ahead of everyone else in his field when he is not being absolutely and outright innovative, Arthur is melding two sensibilities better than I have heard in many years.  The airhead answer and term we always get is the ever-played-out “retro” bantered about, which most of those same people could likely NOT identify as a prefix.  That would also be shallow imitation.  Arthur has come up with something far richer and more genuine than the know-it-all hollowness that kind of thinking brings.  Instead, we get real music!

 

The lyrics pull no punches, so expect lyrics more blunt and explicit than the 1970s, though you get a rare case when that is not a substitute for lack of talent.  It occurred to me that the way the more current sound motifs are used (some drum machines, turntablists/DJ scratching), they are done in the cheeky sense of sound experimentation that we used to hear boldly in Pop music all the time.  Beside big names like Paul McCartney, Billy Joel and Elton John, Arthur’s even closer in kinship to Neil Finn, Tim Finn (related, the brothers from Split Enz and Crowded House), Glen Philips (solo and from Toad The Wet Sprocket), Chris Isaac, Lindsey Buckingham (Fleetwood Mac and solo), David Gates (solo and of Bread), Leo Sayer and even Michael Franks among others.

 

Though it can be said that the album stays within a set of genres, it has diversity on the ground with which it is built and that is not easy.  Most persons cutting records do not have that kind of focus or range, so this makes the album hold up to repeated playback.  Of the songs, Mary Ann is a logical single, being another gimmicky song about a girl.  Boy, do I miss such Pop staples.  Tonight is a more serious work that works.  Broken-Hearted Smile is somewhere between the Pop-iness of the first song and the more open angle of the second, showing off his strengths well in a song about desperately trying to recapture someone at any cost.  End Of The Day is the soft-singing-to-harder-rockin’ backing track I do not hear enough.  Mercy has some nicely sassy/sarcastic vocals, which reminded me most of a more aggressive David Gates.  Keep Me Around is a fun Country Rock sing-a-long-type record that will be either fun or annoying, depending on the listener.  Since I like it, it gets one of my prestigious “gloriously annoying” raves, meaning it is most likely to annoy people I do not like and are obnoxious.  The title song is more straight forward than the title would suggest.  Bloomed is the most laid-back of all the tracks; the closest to a standard love song, yet ever lame.  Sight of Your Tears is another Pop rocker with slightly demented vocals and ideas.  Wake is also demented, but also very laid-back as it employs subtle audio trickery and blending.

 

That’s range!  Tracks like this are a return to such classic music, without being nostalgia, yet retaining a unique sense of throwback.

 

Completing this is the appropriately bizarre cover by Margot Q. Knight (of Fabrica), which reminds us of how great music in general was before a declining MTV destroyed it.  The covers became part of the experience and the fun.  This eventually did get highjacked in a series of safer, less challenging images from Corporate-friendly covers for lesser bands (and a couple solo artists), but before that we had some of the greatest album covers in music history.  Now, like too many feature film posters, all we get are big fat faces of “artists” we will quickly get tired of.  Ben Arthur is not one of those artists, as Edible Darling is the kind of throwback the industry needs now.  Maybe this will become a Spring/Summer 2004 favorite.

 

You can find out more about Ben Arthur, hear tracks, see video and more about the new album, we recommend a visit the following:

 

http://www.BenArthur.com

 

http://www.hyfntrak.com/benarthur/AFF887/

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo