If everybody has a novel in them, as the old maxim goes, then it follows naturally enough that everybody has an album in them too. Except that journalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Mark Edwards didn’t particularly care to share his record with the world. But, according to press-generated apocrypha at any rate, “somebody played something to somebody else, and before Edwards knew it his track ‘There Is No Hope In Perfection’ got aired on national radio.”

Given the quality, everything on Balance was written and recorded between 2003 and 2007 in Edwards’ north London home, it proves that the good will in fact out. Whether the artist himself and the “somebody” alluded to by the Warner spin doctors are one and same then is largely immaterial. Especially considering that this is instrumental music, made up of guitar and keyboard, which, unlike most of its ilk, doesn’t leave you cold.

Everybody does have a novel/album in them; that much is certain. But in the majority of the cases that’s exactly where the story should stay: inside. Ergo, Edwards provides the exception to the rule by releasing a spectacular debut.

(4/5)