This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
The first cut on singer-songwriter Ed Harcourt’s sophomore album is titled Bittersweetheart. You couldn’t sum up From Every Sphere any better than that. Though, since I get paid for this, perhaps I should try.
So here goes: From the plinky, Tom Waitsian jazzbo piano that opens the hour-long disc to the shimmery orch-pop strains that close it, From Every Sphere offers 13 tracks of cultivated seduction and pop passion guaranteed to appeal to fans of Hawksley Workman and Rufus Wainwright. Though, to be fair, Brit Harcourt is slightly less fey and more musically adventurous than either of them. Along with the grand piano chords, dusty vocals and late-night melancholy you expect, you also get a few things you might not — like the trip-hoppy funk of Ghost Writer, the noirish Latin groove of Undertaker Strut, the radio-friendly Watching the Sun Come Up and the dreamy reverb-drenched soundscape Metaphorically Yours. Harcourt’s dramatic troubadourism may give From Every Sphere its heart and soul — but the rest of the disc gives it enough variety to keep Ed from sounding as if he’s going in circles.
