20 Signs of Life From 2003

Ed Harcourt has grown from eccentric indie rocker—champing at the bit to work through a legendary backlog of songs—to architect of the languorously cluttered atmospherics of a solo debut that found his ambitions getting the better of him. But From Every Sphere, only the second proper entry of his recording career, is a comparably cozy revelation from the 25-year-old English upstart. Oft accused of bowing too obviously at the altar of his influences—donning the garb of ragged troubadour when it appeared his strengths placed him more comfortably within the realm of wounded crooner—Harcourt instead grows into his craft on From Every Sphere, emerging with a consistent, controlled set of songs that expands his melodic, textural and lyrical vocabulary, coming frighteningly close to fulfilling the broad scope of his ambitions. Everything from the climbing piano lines and his smoky baritone forming the richly relaxed texture of “Bittersweetheart” to the epic building of the title track and the triumphantly soaring power pop of “Watching the Sun Come Up” portrays an artist with the poise to allow himself to be obvious. The sometimes ponderously self-serious nature of his previous work is exchanged for an attitude rooted in a guarded confidence in the present. All in all, the album is the sound of an artist awakening to his true potential, one that at this point seems utterly unlimited.