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STRANGERS
(Astralwerks)
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Remy Zero and Jeff Buckley are two of the comparisons former Snug bassist Ed Harcourt has been graced with. Not that there aren’t others. The opening track here, "The Storm Is Coming," is one of the more recent Snow-Patrol-meets-Coldplay guitar-jangle mid-tempo rockers — the difference being that Harcourt, a prolific multi-instrumentalist, sounds as if he meant what he’s singing. With so many hearts turning up on modern-rock sleeves lately, the earnest singer-songwriter market is exploding. But though Strangers is peppered with enough jingle bells and waltzing pianos to qualify Harcourt for one of those coveted slots on the Garden State 3 soundtrack (as well as a Mercury Prize nomination), it’s not quite a paint-by-numbers singer-songwriter collection: he unleashes some refreshing bombast in the lyrics, if not the music, of "Loneliness." The album still plays like the soundtrack for your next trip to the Gap — and I mean that as a compliment. (Ed Harcourt appears this Saturday, April 23, at the Paradise Lounge, 969 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston; call 562-8814.)
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