Ed Harcourt - Strangers

Genre rock Publisher Astralwerks External Links Official Site Astralwerks

Ed Harcourt's Strangers will be your best friend when you're sipping wine on a stormy night in front of the fire with your narcissistic-self. You'll think back to how happy you once were, how you felt you were connected with everything, but as you get up for more wine you'll realize that you're just disenfranchised and all those memories you were feeling are rather your future dreams and aspirations. Strangers will continue this journey just as soon as you've refilled your glass.

Harcourt put twelve songs into this album and chances are you won't need to skip a single track. The album opens with "The Storm is Coming" which begins with a wailing, raspy, distorted guitar but quickly resolves into a bit of very clean, Ben Folds/Ted Leo piano rock with driving vocals. The second track, titled "Born in the 70s" is well-written, ineffectively titled, and most likely going to be put on repeat with the lyrics, "After a length time / You're this parody / Just like the record's stuck / Always repeating the past / That I never liked before / You had no reason to last / We're in a silent war." Just when you think Harcourt is trailing off as his vocals fly out in a tempo faster then the instruments he lets out a compassionate, sincere confession, "The future grabs my throat and lets me know it's alright, and I believe in love and I believe in hate, too."

If Harcourt can write such compassionate lyrics, then why are the titles so dull and generic? Fast forward a few tracks later and you're at "Let Love Not Weigh Me Down" another horrible title for a well written song, "So shed all the tears you want / Run from the places you haunt / If you think you're lost / Or just double-crossed / Don't try to make sense of it all / Let the music and words take you back / To the times when your heart wasn't cracked". In this indie rock ballad Harcourt makes great use of many instruments, from the minor string melodies that follow the lyrics to the hand plucked strings that add a sense of happiness to this ultimately depressing track. At parts throughout the song Harcourt sounds like Conor Oberst while the string sections sound just like sections from The Arcade Fire. The ninth track, "Loneliness" features spine-tingling female vocals which follow Harcourt's lyrics in this incredibly catchy tune that utilizes Beatles-esque guitar riffs, dream-like piano melodies, and ends with "Loneliness, what would I do without you? / Loneliness, is this all, you have, to give me? / To give me? To give me?"

Ed Harcourt's latest release, Strangers, is a powerful, narcissistic and sentimental album that's well worth the trouble to venture out and a find a copy. Even if you end up not liking it, at least you've given yourself a chance to meet someone and become less disenfranchised, you hopeless romantic.