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Album Details

• Artist: Joseph Arthur
• Album: Let's Just Be (w/ The Lonely Astronauts)
• Label: Lonely Astronaut
• Year of Release: 2007
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2007-05-04

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Joseph Arthur is really making use of running his own label, Lonely Astronaut. This is the second album in as many years for Arthur. Let's Just Be is labeled as Joseph Arthur and the Lonely Astronauts but for sake of argument it is just a solo album with a backing band, and not a very good album at that. Noteworthy: Kraig Johnson (Golden Smog, Jayhawks) is part of the Lonely Astronauts.

The album starts off fairly strong with "Diamond Ring", which could be a Rolling Stones out-take. It's got that big swagger that is instantly likeable. "Good Life" is pretty rocking as well, nothing to revolutionary just a good pace. "Precious One" takes a step off of the throttle and has decent results. "Spaceman" just loses me in the trip. He comes around on "Take Me Home", the sort of Arthur track we are used to. On "Chicago" Joseph seems to get lost once again. The song has potential but it only feels half-baked. What's with his voice on "Cockteeze"? He drove me nuts with this one. And damn, the title track is the most annoying piece of shit I've heard this year. Oh, it could be that it's only 20 minutes in length!

"Let's Just Be" seems to travel back to the Rolling Stones territory again but not as nice as the first track. Then that annoying voice returns on "Shake It Off", makes me want to end the listen right here. With "Lack A Vision" he almost has a winner but the ballad seems to be missing some heart. It comes on "I Will Carry You". I liked this one.

So while it's nice to see Arthur become a little more prolific, Let's Just Be is far from Joe's best output. There is the odd worthy song in this effort but not enough to warrant your cash. Don't begin your JA journey here. This album should be saved for hardcore fans, if anyone. I would suggest that he takes a little more time and some deliberate editing of songs on his next album.

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