Review: Martyn Joseph - Under Lemonade Skies

'Martyn wants to move heaven and earth', declares the biography on martynjoseph.com, before noting such critical acclaim as to 'make any publicist purr with pleasure'. Fortunate then that Martyn considers such praise only in an 'almost incidental kind of way', because, almost incidentally, I'm about to add to it.

In fact, such hyperbole should be forgiven about an artist who is so unfairly unfamiliar to many. Now 50, Penarth-born Joseph's first records were released in the mid-1980s; since then his career has taken in a major label contract, a collaboration with Tom Robinson and Steve Knightley and an anthem for last month's Ryder Cup, the first to be played in Wales. His latest accomplishment is Under Lemonade Skies, an accessible album with an unstuffy sound that delivers customary conviction, adorned by skillfully textured acoustic guitar that elevates this effort. Where previous releases have tended towards earnest tenacity and weighty angst, here a nuanced Joseph blends passion and compassion on an album of gentle profundity that is given room to breathe.

Indeed, the album launches in upbeat style on shimmering first song Always Will Be, ascending to open skies that cloud over a touch in the balmy melancholy of So Many Lies, before Joseph heads heavenward on track three. Faith is the staple subject of Joseph's work and threads through the album, his depth of conviction complemented by a lightness of touch. Joseph's expression and spirituality are subtly eloquent, elegant and never glib. His affirmations are intimate, mesmerising and laudably unhampered by clumsy evangelism.

The album's centrepiece - and what was its working title track - is Lonely Like America, a sprawling modern folk song of 'pioneers and racketeers', contrast and contradiction, an ode to a failed promised land. What follows is less distinct, including the overlong On My Way, saved by a vocal performance evoking Knopfler and Springsteen. By the end, some of the fizz has escaped but this is for the most part a sparkling record.