In preparation for this review, I reread my piece on Joseph Arthur's previous album, Our Shadows Will Remain, from October 2004. I came across this sentence, tucked away in the third paragraph, and had to reread it twice to understand its full implications: "Always more naively sincere boho than detached hipster, Arthur left his apartment studio in his adopted hometown of New York and decamped to the relative safety of New Orleans to record Our Shadows Will Remain." Who could have predicted that less than a year after that album was released and that review ran, Arthur's adopted hometown would become a bigger disaster area-- and an equally hotly contested battleground-- than the terrorist-rattled New York he'd left?
If Our Shadows Will Remain was Arthur's post-9/11 album, full of despair pitched between public and private, it makes sense that Nuclear Daydream would be his post-Katrina album. He's too engaged with the world, too anchored in real life, for it not to be (in fact, his song "In the Sun" was rerecorded by Michael Stipe and became the name of a Katrina relief organization). However, Arthur never addresses the subject directly on this album and maintains a respectable lyrical ambiguity, implying both a personal and a communal transformation but preventing easy catharsis or real-life correlations. As a result, Nuclear Daydream could be about a specific person (there are numerous references to needles and pills, suggesting a battle-- his or a friend's-- with drugs or some other temptation) as easily as it could pertain to a specific city. Still, a vague malaise pervades Nuclear Daydream, informing each song whether downcast ("Electrical Storm") or upbeat ("Enough to Get Away").
It's not unlike the melancholy that informs his previous albums, lyrically if not musically. He's abandoned the chaotic New York self-portraits of his first two albums, which mirrored the primitive scrawl of his paintings, and now favors a cleaner, more practiced sound with more room for ambition. In fact, he seems to be entering a phase similar to post-Pop U2 or midcareer R.E.M., when experience and ambition has erased most regional quirks or personal eccentricities. Nuclear Daydream sounds placeless, as if striving for universality. At times the music sounds like it could actually achieve that lofty goal; at times it just sounds blanched, drifting into a kind of anonymity.
Arthur seems to be reckoning with and trying to ward off this new, nameless malaise, and as a result, the songs sound unsettled, slightly off. Nothing-- not even the Jesus-loves-you chorus of "Don't Tell Your Eyes"-- sounds wholly reassuring. Nothing sounds completely hopeless either. On "You Are Free" he sings, "I'm not the man I thought I was," but it's hard to discern whether he's changed for the better or worse-- or, for that matter, whether he's referring to himself or speaking for a larger populace that has lost faith in itself.
Moving between public and individual perspectives, Nuclear Daydream begins strongly: "Too Much to Hide" bounces along on one of Arthur's most memorable melodies, "Black Lexus" gives a tender portrayal of a self-destructive woman (who may also have inspired the drug references), and the transcendent chorus of "Enough to Get Away" promises sweet escape from "controversy" to an idyllic haven. Throughout the album, Arthur multitracks his vocals so he can harmonize with himself. As a result, his stoic, textured tenor contrasts with his grainy falsetto and a surprisingly deep bass, suggesting an inner turmoil that's mirrored in the lyrics but offset by the precision of the music and his roomy production.
However, as Nuclear Daydream progresses, Arthur's solemnity gets the better of him. He slows the tempos, understates the melodies, and closes the album with a set of dirgelike acoustic laments that might hold up individually, but they become tiresome in succession. "Automatic Situation" and "Don't Give Up on People" are ethereal gospel songs, complete with hints of choir and church piano, but they get lost in the cathedral reverb, their melodies not strong enough to hold together in all that space. Regardless of its shortcomings and its inspirations, Nuclear Daydream proves a potent pair with its predecessor, not just in the progression from atomic to nuclear or from New York to New Orleans. But by the time the lackluster title track comes around, it feels as though the malaise has finally overtaken Arthur, musically if not spiritually.
