Joseph Arthur
Big City Secrets

THE REVIEW

This is the stunning debut of Joseph Arthur, released by Peter Gabriel's Real World, a mature album composed of 12 special songs with incredibly poetic, ironic, and sharp lyrics.
Attempts have been made to compare Arthur's art to that of Jeff Buckley, Kurt Cobain, Bob Dylan, and Leonard Cohen, but labeling someone like Joseph Arthur means not understanding him, and there are no better words than the ones he uses to define himself: "Someone who struggles to heal from an identity crisis by playing experimental folk-rock."

The sounds used by Arthur are astonishing; he uses sounds as if they were colors and paints his darkest visions and paranoias with notes. Through these tracks, finished loves, houses in flames, Kafkaesque mutations, faithless religious figures, heroin addicts, and shampoo bottles are reviewed.
Big City Secrets is the great secret of the magic of music, the quest for communicability, the union between the singer and his listener, and the entire album is imbued with this concept, this "sub-plot."
The concept of communicability is very strong in Birthday Card, one of the most beautiful songs on the album, which is set against the backdrop of a finished love story, where she and he exchange their feelings and sensations on pieces of paper without seeing each other.

The Secret (the magic of music) can thus take shape and substance, and in this sense, the beautiful verses of Haunted Eyes are quite emblematic, where the author's eyes become the eyes of the song, which becomes a mirror, also reflecting the gaze of the listener. All with the same eyes, we look at each other, but in reality, we look at ourselves, with our possessed eyes, our haunting eyes.