Our Shadows Will Remain is the fourth studio album by Joseph Arthur. The album was released in the US on September 28, 2004 on 12" vinyl and October 12, 2004 on CD, then in the UK on July 11, 2005 on CD and double 12" vinyl. The recording sessions also spawned the companion EP, And the Thieves Are Gone. There were four singles released when the album was picked up for UK distribution by 14th Floor Records.

Joseph Arthur, who had been a critic's darling since his debut in 1998, scored a kind of sleeper hit on the fringes with 2002's Redemption's Son. His searing poetic lyrics and quirky, left-of-the-dial rock and pop sensibilities shone like a flickering beacon from the underside of human emotion and vulnerability  . Arthur is in a class of his own and Our Shadows Will Remain is a monstrous, memorable outing, his finest moment in a career that is thus far full of them.

That Joseph Arthur has titled his fourth album Our Shadows Will Remain reveals his own conflicted emotions about life during wartime. On one hand, his fourth full-length album- and first after parting ways with longtime label Real World and signing with Vector Recordings- is informed by terror-era jitteriness, a fear of something worse than death: abject annihilation. Clashing with this paranoia, cynicism, grief, and disbelief, however, is Arthur's wavering optimism. The bright blast that vaporizes him may not be a terrorist's bomb, but the Rapture. 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. The resulting album is not a drastic departure, but it does sound more expansive- both geographically and musically.

Arthur shrugs off the restrictive definitions of what a singer-songwriter should do: he draws on grunge but doesn't really make rock music; there are even echoes of David Bowie and Peter Gabriel, his early mentor. Puppets has a thunderous rolling beat and ethereal choral harmonies; Can't Exist initially seems a self-conscious stab at a radio-friendly single, until its simple, chiming chords rupture in a tenebrous squall.

Complete your Joseph Arthur collection. huge album! tip! would like to know how many copies made! vinyl is mumbered. Reply Notify me Helpful.

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