Ed Harcourt

Now that I'm starting to geeze - with a child who is a legal adult - most very young singer-songwriters sound either adolescent and callow or precocious and overreaching to my graying ears. I know, between the two you can't win if you're a musical youth, but that's why they have Triple A radio, kid.

There are of course many exceptions to the rule: Norah Jones is certainly one, but so is the tremendous 24-year old Englishman Ed Harcourt, whose first full-length CD Here Be Monsters hit stores in the U.S. in late-March.

I have been trying for two days to pin down Harcourt's classic, melodic, but up-to-the-moment and experimental sound, and I think I have it: Here Be Monsters is as if Jeff Buckley was singing lead for Tindersticks, with a little Hunky Dory-era Bowie and Travis/Coldplay thrown in for good measure. Harcourt loves the ringing physical purity of the strummed acoustic guitar layered with a sturdy but unobtrusive drum, some way-up-high bells tinkling out a descending countermelody of languid beauty, an unforced but intensely PRESENT vocal, and bold electric guitar flourishes for emphasis and violin occasionally sawing through for poignancy.

Hey, I just described the exceptional first song on Monsters, "Something In My Eye." I love the relatively young Brits like Harcourt, Travis, Coldplay, even David Grey who are secure enough to not fear beauty. Deep beauty took its leave from popular music for the most part between the punk era and the grunge era - chased away by insecurity, aggression and angst - but has made a welcome comeback of late.

Next is the slightly sinister, "God Protect Your Soul," with a rumbling low-end piano and bass drum backbeat riff periodically filigreed with horns, trading appearances with an airy fantasia section presenting a convincing - Harcourt is always convincing - yin/yang duality that has something to do with building a wall around himself. There is apprehension here, but no Eels-like despair.

"She Fell Into My Arms" is ideal single material in a perfect world, the most overtly Jeff Buckley-like of Harcourt's vocals: soulful, insinuating, sly. More rolling piano and offbeat horns punctuate an almost New Orleans feel in the chorus:

And if you need to kiss me
Then, you'll definitely miss me
When I'm gone

Once Monsters is on you won't want Harcourt gone for some time. Per MTV News, Harcourt

grew up in the remote English village of Lewes, known chiefly for its annual Guy Fawkes Day gathering at which townspeople congregate to burn effigies of Pope Paul V and other historical figures. Harcourt eventually left the nest and formed the pop-punk outfit Snug. "It was amazing," Harcourt said. "We had such good fun, but I was writing songs that were very different and weren't really working out."

But Harcourt wasn't just a small-town boy. His father was a diplomat, so the family traveled quite a bit. He says he can remember being convinced the Swedes were spying on him through a bathroom wall in Stockholm. He also did hard time in a boarding school, dressing "up as soldiers once a week, pathetic."

Article Author: Eric Olsen

Career media professional Eric Olsen is honored to be the founder and publisher of Blogcritics.org, which, quite frankly, rules - as do his wife and four children.

Visit Eric Olsen's author page — Eric Olsen's Blog