Ben Arthur - 'Edible Darling' (Bardic)
3/5
By: Samantha Hall
If provided the same amount of dollars, press-time and sheer devilish energy that many-a-popular-charting, folk-rock-country/blues artists hath been given in the last decade or so, then there's no reason why Mr Ben Arthur shouldn't rein amongst similar brooding yet popular appeal acts as Semisonic and Mull Historical Society.
The value of the great tune seems the ultimate: defiantly pop, yet lyrically clever and layered. Musician to the core - the native 'Virginian' quotes how he can be referred to as the 'artist formally known as a waiter'.
'Edible Darling', although melodic and quietly infectious, recalls metaphoric stories with grim humility and clear-eyed honesty, touching down with tongue-in-cheek morbidity on such unavoidable classics as betrayal, sex, humiliation, faith, yearning and death. Notables namely number 'Tonight', a keyboard-ridden and drum machine-heavy ode of a shamed lover pleading to stay over, and also the title-tune - about a friend who raises pigs solely to eat them, a suspect theme which also flows on into the inner-sleeve artwork: displayed in Arthur pushing a shopping-trolley stacked with animal carcasses. Charming stuff.
Ultimately, this is the perfect makings of what makes all soft-guitar outfits so creepingly pleasant and vast in charm; universal life-inspections, recalled with emotional pain and uncomfortable remembrance presented in a light pop-façade.
Artists in this article: Ben Arthur
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