Martyn Joseph - Whoever It Was That Brought Me Here Will Have To Take Me Home

Reviewed by Tony Cummings

I've followed Martyn ever since Ears & Eyes Records presented him as a glinty-toothed pop gospeller able to punch out evangelical truisims for a thousand church groups. Then in 1988. I watched and applauded when he discovered art and found the liberty to 'Treasure The Questions' and look beyond sloganeering for lyrical inspiration. I applauded with his other Christian fans when momentarily he cried about dolphins and got the big budget production with his Epic epic 'Being There'. But I have to report that this latest album is dull. Sounding like a set of demos he knocked off in his home studio one weekend, the stripped down acoustic approach puts all the emphasis on the songs and there isn't anything here which stands comparison with his classics of yesteryear while his lyrics, like his veiled reference to Martin Luther King on "Just Like The Man Said" or his surprising cover of Bebo Norman's "Where The Angels Sleep", seem stilted or maudlin. Disappointing.