Ed Harcourt - From Every Sphere

I often find myself looking up Japanese and European track lists for bonus songs on exported American albums (Self’s Gizmodgery has a really fantastic Japanese bonus track). While I’m sure that most others don’t share this hobby, I hope that Ed Harcourt fans in England feel the same as I, because the US version of From Every Sphere contains an excellent bonus track, in addition to the already exceptional album. Ed Harcourt is a simple-hearted songwriter with enough experimentation in instruments and writing techniques to interest both listeners that enjoy solid songwriting and listeners that enjoy innovative styles; there’s just enough pop to make you smile, and enough depth to keep you interested. While considered a solo record, there is a hefty list of extra musicians that accompany his piano and guitar driven songs. Overflowing with rich instrumentation set to lively mid-tempo-percussion, From Every Sphere is one of those few albums that that can be enjoyed and fully appreciated upon the first listening. Ironically, its instantly gratifying appeal is the album's only flaw, because it draws attention to the fact that it's good music made to sound like good music. Uplifting, flippant lyrics attached to really catchy tunes create a brilliant shell for a record, however there’s something underneath that seems to be lacking. This album is Ed Harcourt’s private stage and theater, though for a good portion of the album it lacks any personal rhetoric. What I’m trying to say is that From Every Sphere is a great listen, but those listeners that demand emotional prose might shelve it faster than not. I’ve always thought that consistency is the mark of a talented musician. Each of Ed Harcourt’s songs carries its own tone and pacing, but as a whole they fit together into a single mood. It’s a very elegant album, sometimes silly and sometimes gloomy, but completely solid. If you’ve listened to the single, “Watching the Sun Come Up,” and have considered purchasing the album, I highly recommend it. It’s the type of music that you’ll find yourself singing along in your head for days and days and days. “Let the sun break through the cracks within my room / the grey sky fades to blue it might wash away this gloom.” The lyrics are often interrupted by cheeky references to isolation and death, (my favorite being a song called “Undertaker Strut,” which is about a funeral director building coffins in the rain) but for the most part remain consoling and cheerful. Ed Harcourt is the type of writer that plays an entire song just to emphasizing a single phrase, or set of lyrics; Conner Oberst, of Bright Eyes and Desaparecidos fame, has a similar way of picking out a small section of a song to accentuate the whole. “…We are joined at the hip like Siamese twins / and that’s a metaphor for the feelings that I store.” Despite not having as personal a touch as I’d desire, Ed Harcourt threw together a lusciously packed record that is bound to attract a lot of ears. He has a Badly Drawn Boy taste for layers, and sort of a Jeremy Enick style vocals that mix into a fresh, bloom with old fangled roots. And that’s a metaphor for the feelings that I store. [www.edharcourt.com]