Ed Harcourt’s eleventh album since his Mercury Prize-nominated debut 'Here Be Monsters' in 2001 is proof that this fine English artist is a long way from running out of ideas.
His latest album was produced at home and completed with the help of friend and producer Dave Izumi Lynch at Eastbourne’s Echo Zoo studio.
On Broken Keys Harcourt duets with Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dueli so we get two sensitive male singer-songwriters for the price of one. At The Dead Of The World features female vocals from singer Stevie Parker.
Over the course of twelve tracks we are musically escorted from the full blown orchestral sweeps of Into The Loving Arms Of Your Enemy and Ghost Ship to a more muted piano ballad The Violence Of The Rose. The latter is reminiscent of Rufus Wainwright as he sings of being “out of step with the world.”
The variety of moods and styles is impressively realized.Deathless is a powerful song about embracing life and contrasts nicely with crooning day-dreamy Anvils & Hammers.
The touching Seraphina is about passing of a close friend and full of Baroque romantic flourishes that lead into the tongue-in-cheek finale of the closing track partly sung in Spanish.
”What do I do with the sadness?” Harcourt asks himself in the lead single Strange Beauty. The answer is to turn his experience into plaintive yet uplifting songs that chart the fine line that separates self-doubt and personal revelation.
