A hazy piano overture (Suspended Animation) leads the listener gently into the eight tracks from this talented 25 year old singer songwriter from Los Angeles.
Antiques is Patrick Joseph's debut album and he has done a remarkably slick job of writing , performing and producing everything himself. The arrangements are so rich that they are more like the sound like a full band than a solo work.
These are mellow and melodic folk-blues numbers sung in a warm and emotionally charged voice with echoes of M.Ward and Jeff Buckley. The influence of the latter is particularly evident on the tender Better Than It Was Before.
They are ostensibly love songs of the unrequited variety as exemplified in Arsonist Blues and Escape Artist which both express a weary sense of resignation that a.n.other is so hard to pin down. In the first, he sings "I've been trying to get to you for thirty lifetimes and a day" while in the second he laments the fact that he has beem "chasing after ghosts to get to you".
The prevailing mood of the songs is one of disillusionment but fortunately it is never bleak or self pitying. One of the best songs, Untangled, is about being rescued from a metaphorical hole and Public Diary may sound a little like Radiohead's No Surprises but the protagonist is no desperate pen pusher. Instead, it's a song which confidently refutes the idea that it is always good to wear your heart on your sleeve - "don't you ever keep anything inside".
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The short breezy finale of Slippery Shadow even manages to summon up a wry sense of hope: "despite all my troubles, I'm convinced that you'll be mine someday".
The cover of Antiques has Patrick Joseph with some gaffer tape stuck over his mouth which suggests he's not yet sure he's found his own voice. He should start believing.
Patrick Joseph's Website
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