Released in the UK in 2006 to near unanimous praise, Ed Harcourt’s The Beautiful Lie debuted in the U.S in 2008, sounding every bit as timely and idiosyncratic as upon its initial arrival. Multi-instrumentalist Harcourt is a jumble of exciting contradictions. He writes both confessional singer-songwriter odes and brilliant character sketches. And he scores them either to lush, grandiose arrangements with wide-screen sonic appeal or strips them down to their bare essentials until he sounds like a man singing in a closet.  The broken-hearted quaver in his voice for the piano and string ballad “Late Night Partner” comes together in the reprising chorus where he offers, “I’m on the verge of something beautiful,” after sounding more like he’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “Revolution In The Heart:” resounds like a U2 political anthem with a manic marching band threatening to take over from Harcourt’s piano. The empathy supporting the down and out characters of “The Last Cigarette” is wrapped in a melodic glaze of eclectic orchestration, while “I Am the Drug” uses a percussive army borrowed from Tom Waits to drive its delusions of madness.