Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

If there is ever any question over just how good, how brilliant, a musician and lyrists Ed Harcourt is, then that might be the day to hang up the earphones, put away the stereo and flog your collection for enough money as you can make and head off to the place where the silent order of monks and nuns reside, for no music could ever surely lift your spirits again.

Since the musician released Here Be Monsters in 2001, this man’s music has charmed and intrigued like an Indian piper on the streets of Delhi coaxing a cobra and watching as the snake slowly moves unhindered and entranced in the steamy Asian air. His latest release, Time of Dust, is no different; however instead of a snake and a piper, you have a magician, a conjurer of words which with his expressive music and compelling poet like narrative is nothing but hypnotic and beautifully melancholic.

Time of Dust, it comes to us all and our actions, whether creative or personal, all eventually fall the same way. It takes somebody of Mr. Harcourt’s unnerving ability, of unswerving dedication to bring a tale to the table to make you realise that what you are hearing isn’t Gold, it is more permanent and better shaped, like the haphazardness of a wood allowed to run wild, it is far more interesting, more abundant in its natural splendour and unlike the glittering jewel, which does nothing but somehow impress, has darker corners in which to explore and get wonderfully lost within.

With six tracks making up the album, what is on offer is of the highest quality, perhaps the strongest set of songs that Ed Harcourt has put together since Here Be Monsters. From the opening notes of Come Into My Dreamland to the closing section of Love Is A Minor Key the wonderment and the darkness inhabit the same exclusive body of music, it is a potent mix that grabs the attention and fulfils every desire, every  mental craving a music fan could wish for and leave nothing to beg for. The music is sweet, nostalgic, and profound and touches a part of the soul that sometimes gets neglected. In My Time Of Dust is sparkling, The Saddest Orchestra (It Only Plays For You) is divine and Parliament of Rooks is ghostly and dynamic. A tour de-force of musical introspection and memories drawn into the real world.

Ian D. Hall