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  • Release Date:
From Every Sphere Image
Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 19 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 5 Ratings

  • Summary: Nominated for Britain's Mercury Music Prize for his 2001 debut 'Here Be Monsters,' DIYer Ed Harcourt returns with his second studio recording.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 19
  2. Negative: 0 out of 19
  1. Alternative Press
    100
    His honky-tonk piano ballads are a little less haunted and more memorable. [June 2003, p.104]
  2. Uncut
    90
    From Every Sphere is the ultimate grower, which moves, in your mind, from quite nice to utterly compelling and addictive over a matter of days, or better, nights. [Album of the Month, March 2003, p.94]
  3. Entertainment Weekly
    83
    His songs recall both the musical inventiveness of Captain Beefheart and the mopey poetry of Elliot Smith. [30 May 2003, p.116]
  4. Unlike his obvious contemporaries - David Gray and Tom McRae - Harcourt has produced an album that reaches out beyond the boundaries of the traditional songwriter, yet still comes packed with memorable melodies and robust songs.
  5. Magnet
    80
    A record that blows up like a supernova and runs the dinner-jacket nobility of its predecessor through a wood chipper. [#59, p.96]
  6. With a painterly command of the palette of sound and a fondness for the sweet melody of a lullaby, Harcourt is cousin to multi-instrumental songwriters such as Brian Wilson and Badly Drawn Boy.
  7. Mojo
    40
    For every aching melodic twist and sagacious lyric, there's a lumpy, sub-Beach Boys dirge and dicing-with-doggerel couplet to negotiate. [Mar 2003, p.103]

See all 19 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 3
  3. Negative: 0 out of 3
  1. matta
    Jul 18, 2005
    10
    Wow, Pitchfork really are just a bunch of morons. If it isn't Radiohead or the like with some weird space music, electronic shit going Wow, Pitchfork really are just a bunch of morons. If it isn't Radiohead or the like with some weird space music, electronic shit going on in the background then it just isn't good according to them. Well they can suck it. This album is incredible in every single way, one of the absolute best albums of 2003, right up there with Pernice Brothers, Sufjan Stevens, and The Notwist. Don't listen to the critics on this one; discover Ed harcourt and you won't regret it. Expand
  2. GarrethO
    Apr 22, 2003
    10
    Ok so nothing can be perfect but it's hard to imagine a much better album. I'm not his mum in disguise I genuinely am fascinated by Ok so nothing can be perfect but it's hard to imagine a much better album. I'm not his mum in disguise I genuinely am fascinated by this brilliant album. I spend all day waiting to come home and listen to it which has never happened to me with music before. The tunes are unforgetable and the arrangements are far more thought out than Here Be monsters. I was surprised it was so good up till now he was just a name on my CD rack, now he's like god or something. May all of his days be blessed. (and let him make another album this good) Collapse
  3. KB
    May 6, 2005
    9
    Forget what the critics say. They wouldnt know genius if it came and bit them....yeah. I get the feeling from various interviews that Ed has Forget what the critics say. They wouldnt know genius if it came and bit them....yeah. I get the feeling from various interviews that Ed has disowed this album a little. But forget the naysayers, its magnificant. Full of harmony and class. Sometimes i think Ed's aspiring to be the 'new' Tom Waits but with this record he reached a place of his own. Theres drunken ballads a-plenty but also moments of weird instrumentation which bely an obvious broken heart. Plus the lyrics are grand. The guys obvously been reading a little Burroughs along with a good amount of the brothers Grimm. Bow down man, this is friggen genius. Expand