Kevin Bronson on June 15th, 2010

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Through five albums, London-based singer-songwriter Ed Harcourt has seldom stood in one place, except maybe in the shadows. Sonically, the onetime Mercury Prize nominee (for 2001’s “Here Be Monsters”) has channeled his moodiness in piano ballads, orchestral excursions and chamber-pop, never playing the mope to the point of disdain. His fifth album, the lushly arranged “Lustre” – although noticeably more sanguine (perhaps owing to the presence of vocals from his wife Gita’s band the Langley Sisters) – should solidify Harcourt’s place among songwriters such as Rufus Wainwright and Damien Rice, guys whose acute surveillance of the human condition, and their own, reaps sometimes-profound rewards.

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