PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

HERE WE GO

http://pitchfork.com/news/40804-pj-harvey-announces-new-album/

February 14, 2011

funny title for PJ. is this going to be a political album?

Oh there'll be an earthquake or some such, then they'll have to rename it "Polly Jean Harvey" or some such.

if that's the album cover on pfork -- is this the first pj album not to feature a photo of her?

I think that Uh Huh Her didn't feature her but a Polly impersonator, who also happened to write all the songs on the album.

Uh Huh Her had some excellent songs on it. She just didn't feel like recording them in a commercially appealing way.

uh huh her was great, certainly better than the album that preceded it

I thought Uh Huh Her was surprisingly good! Going low key was a good career move.

Colour me excited. I liked the last one for about 5 listens and then it never left my shelf, hopefully this can have more of the trademark venom which the name suggests.

Yup, political

Lots of autoharp by the looks of things. I'm approaching the idea of PJ Harvey doing explicitly political with some trepidation though...

autoharp makes me think joanna newsom placed her iphone with the tpain voice next to her instrument - plz say that is how it sounds

No it's a dulcimer-type thing. Chimey noises.

I think it's sort of a bummer that in recent years she's played down her strengths as a guitarist. Piano? Autoharp? No thanks. I did notice that the drummer on this thing is not Rob Ellis, which is a bummer, too. I just hope it's not another slog.

The first and only time I saw PJ Harvey live was a huge disappointment because she didn't play the guitar once.

Been waiting nearly a decade for Polly to rock again.

http://soundcloud.com/pjharvey/written-on-the-forehead/s-FnKW5

If England shakes it more than three times, it's playing with itself.

Terrible artwork

i dig written on the forehead, largely because she samples and loops a classic niney the observer song.

i'm intrigued by this album, even though i haven't been a big pj harvey fan.

um, excited about this
i trust her pretty implicitly, so if she wants to sound like j. newsom via tpain i will support that until she proves herself untrustworthy

EXCITED

OK. That song is fucking amazing people.

Not what I expected...

Holy fucking shit this is the best thing ever. You sure it is actually Peej though? Sounds nothing like her, even if it is t-pained

Sounds nothing like her

she never her does.

Think those are ospreys on the cover, which is kind of a weird bird to choose to represent 'England' (only one breeding pair here afaik, bird-fact fans)

Great comment from Mardi69 on Soundcloud:

This reminds me way too much of My Bloody Valentine and makes me worry that maybe you've got into heroin, Polly

She's not been T-Pained, she's been Karin Dreijer Andersson-ed. Sounds incredible and unexpected - I like the "blood, blood and fire" reggae dude in the background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7rAwluPfa8

yeah sorry for some reason i forgot fever ray knife existed.

is that the same sample foxy brown used? i likes it.

Kind of on the fence with this. That reggae sample is making me think of crusty dance stuff, like Dreadzone or something. Plus the bass has been stripped out and acoustic guitars have been added and it's just left it really rhythmically flat.

it's very cool but needs to do more melodically, but why time to get one's hongro on when the essay is not finished? avaunt!

n.b. needs to do more melodically applies to the last bit where it's one chord-change away from glory and bottles it

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

not making up my mind yet but hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

the sample...it kind of sounds like she's accidentally played two completely separate songs at the same time

Eh? Sounds totally coherent to me.

it sounds like when i'm playing something in itunes and then accidentally click on to a website w/autoplaying music

This reminds me way too much of My Bloody Valentine

Mardi69's loss.

looking fwd to this -- white chalk would v. much be in my top albums of the decade, so high standard...

the more i listen, the more coherent the song sounds. it's like a call-and-response between harvey and niney.

i would gladly deign to have her baby were she to take up rockin' the guitar again.

Now deeply obsessed with this, I'll be quite surprised if this isn't my album of the year come December. It's just phenomenal.

i h8 u!

;_;

When is this released? Between this & the destroyer, i should really learn to find a cheap way to legally obtain records.

The first time I heard the "Blood & Fire" track it reminded me of something Sinead O'Connor would do, but that's cool.

Was this the album you tweeted about being one of the strangest albums of the spring...

When is this released?

Valentine's Day, which means it should be leaking any moment now.

what a great title

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

best i've heard in a while

xpost. Yes it was.

More than a little intrigued now...

Dorian, what's it actually like? Electric? Guitars? Bluesy? Punky?

The answer to that is clearly 'yes'

Not noisy at all. Quieter, eerier, full of surprising textures and samples. Fascinating lyrics. Sorry, not being very eloquent this morning - this Mojo review is useful:

http://tonightthestreetsarefulloftractors.blogspot.com/

He only talks about words! What does it SOUND like?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaeNZBbSVpo

That's better!

Colour me excited.

It's quite consistent so if you like Written on the Forehead and The Words That Maketh Murder you'll have a good idea, though there are folkier moments too. One thing I like is that it sounds as English as White Chalk but shot through with fragments of reggae, arabic music, etc in a way that's about contrast rather than fusion.

words that make murder is p folky

what's she going for with the male these these these are the words the words that make u, is it supposed to sound square and sanitized like polite commercial 60s folk or

just trying to place what tradition that is in exactly

eddie cochrane quote at the end surely

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2011/01/the-man-who-maketh-polly-jeans-movies/ may interest some of you

So this is shaping up to be particularly awful.

I really like it. It sounds particularly rooted in old English (pagan) mysticism. I also think the videos go great with the music (thanks for the interview link A Hoy Hoy!).

"what's she going for with the male these these these are the words the words that make u, is it supposed to sound square and sanitized like polite commercial 60s folk or"

To me it sounds like an outtake straight of the Wicker Man soundtrack! I really like its 'driving force', it pushes the song on in a rush.

Off to check the 5 song sampler now.

oh yeah like a charm chant or incantation, i guess i can hear that

heard this now. what a strange album, indeed. most of the songs sound weirdly like...drinking songs.

Haha, yeah I can see that Lex. That's a good thing though, no?

i've only listened twice - i have no idea whether i like this album or not yet!

(i really like it when an album confuses me like that, tho.)

so she's made a Sandy Denny album?

the sample...it kind of sounds like she's accidentally played two completely separate songs at the same time

Having heard The Glorious Land now, and that hunting horn sample overlaid in completely the wrong metre and key, this makes a lot more sense. Like it's intended to sound like disparate or contradictory sonic signifiers of England laid over one another?

I think I'm going to love this, by the way, the songs on the sampler are all hugely intriguing.

The Glorious Land is the only one I don't like because that horn sample is so jarring. When I first heard it on my computer I thought I had another browser window open and it was coming from some annoying Geocities-style animation. The rest, like Lex says, is initially puzzling in such an intriguing way. It's up there with White Chalk and Is This Desire for me.

That's good, those are my two favourite PJ Harvey albums (well, Dry as well). I've never found much to love about To Bring You My Love, strangely.

weird, i didn't find the hunting horn jarring at all, but i still can't get used to the reggae sample on "written on the forehead"

TBYML was my first pj harvey album, still my second fav after ITD <3

PJ Harvey is possibly the artist with the least consensus as to what is her best album that I can think of.

4-Track Demos for me, if that counts as an album proper.

always preferred 4TD to RoM - plus it's the only place you can find "hardly wait", "m-bike" and fucking "easy". "easy" is top 10 pj harv catalogue for me.

w/r/t the new one, i'm still trying to feel out how she's playing with tradition and insularity, how ironic that "goddamn europeans" exclamation is, what the whole vibe of hankering for an england of the past (albeit non-idealised) means...

also makes me want to go back and read lots of war poetry but i guess that's obv. for a record that's ostensibly a reaction to the modern world, it feels oddly like a historical document.

(i haven't read anyone else's takes on it yet...)

and "driving". fucking love "driving". ONE HUNDRED DIFFERENT BIBLES BY MY SIDE

I don't feel that she's hankering for the past as such, certainly not compared to White Chalk - just as important as the folk elements are the blatantly "foreign" samples and quotations. I wonder why she's found herself drawn so much to old conflicts like Gallipoli - easier to write about than current ones? But then she's not someone to do things just because they're easy. It seems like an album pulled in different directions, in a good way.

I don't know if this is the case in the UK but in the US I've always liked the fact that because she's stayed on Island for so long (is that still the case?) there's a nice block of CDs on my shelf that grows over time that just has the same little rainbow logo at the top of the spine that's all her. I look at it and think "Damn if that ain't a lot of great music."

i guess it's the lyrical thrust that mostly codes as "hankering for a past england" to me - i agree that it's nowhere near as simple as that, it's one vibe i get out of many, but...kind of feel that the small-c conservativism that's always been present with PJH is much more important to this record than it has been previously. (that's not a diss, on my part.)

It seems like an album pulled in different directions

yes, absolutely. watching the videos, i get the impression she's imagining what it's like to be old for a lot of it.

i guess it's the lyrical thrust that mostly codes as "hankering for a past england" to me

Once I hear more than the one song (call me patient, I just want to wait on the whole thing) I'll be interested to see how or in what way the album (lyrically -- but perhaps in a parallel if not exact way, musically) might remind me of the work of Disco Inferno. Ian Crause was always very focused on the idea of England as oppressive/unstable historical structure -- still is, actually, based on some of our recent conversation -- and it's what makes the band so strong for me in large part, in that it played out in both words and music. I almost wonder if there's going to be a sense of that here, though obviously coming from a very different and distinct artist; certainly this talk about all the sample use as well makes me think of it. Of course, I'm sure plenty of other examples can be suggested...

I've never really connected with PJ Harvey, but this kind of talk is making me curious about the new one.

what songs were on that sampler, btw?

title track is the most immediately incredible one here i think - actually the run of four that opens the album is really, really effective.

there's this real looseness to the arrangements and performances on this album, a casualness that PJH has never exhibited before.

so she's made a Sandy Denny album?
that'd be cool

xpost She's certainly not hankering for a past England! I think she's considering England's past and its present with equal sadness: and sometimes that means using the tools of nostalgia. The sound of the album, and the musical references it makes, might make it sound at a casual listen like she's hankering, but listen closer ...

You can write about the past without in any way hankering for it!

So this is shaping up to be particularly awful.

― silence is a rhythm too (Turangalila), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 6:18 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

otm :(

well it's not like she was ever gonna top White Chalk anyway, sooo

I'm not English but sometimes I feel like hankering for old England too, so I quite like the new album.
Did I ever mention that I had the chance to interview her a couple of years ago? - it was in a beautiful beautiful beautiful pub in Yeovil. Very Old England indeed.

Lex - the sampler tracklisting is:

Written On The Forehead
The Last Living Rose
The Glorious Land
Bitter Branches
Hanging In The Wire

And the live version of The Words That Maketh Murder

I've only heard the sampler so far but I love pretty much all of this. I dispute that the casualness or looseness is a new thing, her work going as far back as Dry has always had its mess and imperfections - those albums of hers that don't are in the minority.

Hanging In The Wire is beautiful. who else is singing on these songs?

john parish and mick harvey, going by the credits

Jean-Marc Butty on some songs too.

I think I disagree with every line of this review.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2011/02/07/110207crmu_music_frerejones

Makes me glad I'm starting with Harvey at this end of her discography

“Let England Shake” is an improvement over “White Chalk,” but that set a low bar.

smdh @ sf-j

That Sasha Frere-Jones says virtually nothing about Let England Shake. I read that none the wiser about what it sounds like, what it stands for, anything, other than it's quiet and it's maybe better than White Chalk.

it's a two page story

Weird that he spends a para picking apart the obviousness of The Glorious Land without wondering whether maybe the blunt, old-fashioned language was a deliberate nod to folk music rather than an artistic failure. It's the first review I've ever read by him which boils down to: "Wah! An artist I like has changed direction. I prefer the old stuff!"

Ah, didn't see the second page. It's still not particularly enlightening even then.

Ha, I would admire his chutzpah if it ended at the bottom of the first page. "There, that's all I got."

sfj is just mad it wasn't called Black Chalk

idk it strikes me that SFJ saying PJ shouldn't abandon blood'n'guts'n'viscera is a bit...late? that ship has long sailed. and so it should, she's not an angry 20something any more. and the review's focus does weirdly seem to be on "pursuing a vendetta against white chalk" (and tbh dissing white chalk = direct path to me not taking u seriously).

following PJH's career keeps you on your toes. if he hasn't worked that out by now maybe he doesn't really get what motivates her.

For me Uh Huh Her proved that blood'n'guts had become a dead end - a lot of the noisier stuff (Cat on the Wall, Who the Fuck?) seemed like a failed attempt to revisit Rid of Me territory after the mainstreaming of Stories whereas Pocket Knife, Desperate Kingdom of Love etc pointed the way forward - quieter, spookier, more out of time.

haven't heard this record yet, but i think what's missing from a lot of pj harvey criticism (at least the stuff i've read) is that she's pretty much always drawn from folk music (at least thematically/lyrically, if not musically).

what's missing from a lot of pj harvey criticism

you mean of the new album? aside from SFJ's fanboy upset screed, i haven't read anything negative about the new album. in fact, i felt like a groundswell of goodwill was developing for this disc.

(and i say this as someone who hasn't ever been the biggest pjh fan; but i am looking forward to the new disc)

you mean of the new album?
oh no, just in general

I was never a huge fan; I think I was put off a little by the artfulness. But White Chalk completely won me over, and if SFJ doesn't see anything visceral in singing about having an abortion then he's not listening very closely. And this is even better, because the music is so haunted ...

For me Uh Huh Her proved that blood'n'guts had become a dead end - a lot of the noisier stuff (Cat on the Wall, Who the Fuck?) seemed like a failed attempt to revisit Rid of Me territory after the mainstreaming of Stories whereas Pocket Knife, Desperate Kingdom of Love etc pointed the way forward - quieter, spookier, more out of time.

otm - i thought "the letter" was great but otherwise my favs on that (v underrated) album are things like "the darker days of me and him", "the slow drug", "it's you". though her penchant for making the exact opposite of what she's just done makes it tough to write off the blood'n'guts forever.

I like that she's so honest about the craft involved. Like Nick Cave (not a comparison Lex will enjoy, sorry) she's moved into this realm where her writing becomes more like a novelist's than a rock singer's, and I love that and think it's a fruitful way for an artist to go after a few albums, but SFJ's review reminds me how uneasy some people are with that idea. But of course it's wrong to assume her early stuff was feral and instinctive and unmannered.

But White Chalk completely won me over, and if SFJ doesn't see anything visceral in singing about having an abortion then he's not listening very closely

I think in this case "visceral" is being used interchangeably with "noisy".

Like Nick Cave (not a comparison Lex will enjoy, sorry)

ha i like the album he did...about pj harvey

(but literally nothing else i've heard by him)

This album is astounding. It's White Chalk's equal, it's just very different. I do think it's her most 'English folk' record to date but all of the ideas about England are set in a firmly international context, usually via the idea of soldiers fighting abroad or returning home. Like Dorian, this will be one of my albums of the year, I've played it once a day since Xmas and don't plan on stopping. Lyrically it's her best album yet.

The Words That Maketh Murder opens with the lines: “I’ve seen and done things that I want to forget/ I’ve seen soldiers fall like lumps of meat/ Blown and shot out beyond belief/ Arms and legs were in the trees.” Without wanting to be all lit crit about it, this is a reference to Francisco Goya's The Disasters Of War plates. He was commenting on The Peninsula War of the early 19th Century when his native Spain was facing the prospect of becoming overrun by the French. Two of the three most famous plates, which were completed as he was becoming overwhelmed with disease and madness, are entitled: No se puede... Yo lo vi... One cannot look... I have seen it...

His pictures from this period are perhaps the most potent pieces of war art the world has ever seen and are certainly the equivalent to Picasso's Guernica in visceral impact. The most famous is Great Deeds! Against The Dead! and shows severed body parts, including arms and legs, hanging obscenely from a tree’s branches.

The piece itself was reproduced as a bronze cast by Jake and Dinos Chapman. The song is the sonic equivalent of one of their horific exhibitions with its black clouds of flies and flesh throbbing in the heat.

Harvey's superior statement of protest is weirdly part Surfin’ Bird, part English folk song, part reverb-stunned Cocteau Twins and part colliery marching brass band. She delivers her ice-cold lines with a compellingly child-like delivery (as she does elsewhere on the album, like people have said, it is a bit Fever Ray-ish but not so much as to be annoyingly similar) suggesting that, like Goya, she needs to distance herself from the horror... she cannot, as an adult, look directly at it. When she has long time collaborator John Parish (or is it Mick Harvey?) sing, ‘What if I take my problems to the United Nations?’ in the style of Eddie Cochran’s ‘Summer Time Blues’, it provides a moment of almost hilarious catharsis and reveals exactly how little hope she has that things are going to get better any time soon. Because for what ails us as a species of rapacious, teritorial, blood thirsty animals, there ain't no cure, right?

Without wanting to be all lit crit about it, this is a reference to Francisco Goya's The Disasters Of War plates.

i want more people to be lit crit about this album - war literature has never really been my field but it seems the references are pretty obvious if you know them?

xpost to Doran. Dorian will be one of your albums of the year? I mean, I know he's written a book, but he's really branching out now, eh?

dorian going for the triple threat - i eagerly anticipate the perfume

Doran, that is one fantastic review, thank you!

Will let that sink in. Am really, really enjoying the album still. So much to discover and get lost in. It's "Englishness", the mystique and pagan influences; it's so up my street.

Dorian Lynskey Sings The Songs Of Edith Piaff with bonus disc of ragga jungle standards.

Je Ne Regrette Dorian (Lynski Pon De Floor)

Cutty Ranks - Lynsky By Lynsky

Ahem. So anyway, Ann Powers tweeted yesterday: "Will I be the only critic to rave about the new PJ Harvey album?"

So either there's a big difference between US and UK critics on this or she thinks SFJ runs the world. I can't imagine anyone attacking it as strongly, or for the same reasons.

Great assessment, Doran - the Goya reference flew way over my head. But it confirms my theory that all the war lyrics here are more about the history of responding to war in visual art, folksong, etc than about the event itself.

Ahem. So anyway, Ann Powers tweeted yesterday: "Will I be the only critic to rave about the new PJ Harvey album?"

the SFJ is the only official review i've read yet; i assumed she'd just seen/heard negative reactions elsewhere.

She must be hanging out with fools.

I've been thinking about this. And I think the lyrics about bodies in trees are referring not to Goya but to a much greater artist, a visionary of Britain's decay and decline, a seer of conflict and unflinching reflecter of man's inhumanity to man: Bobby Gillespie. Specifcally, Beautiful Future:
"Take a ride around the city
and tell me what do you see
Empty houses, burning cars
Naked bodies hanging from the trees"

Come on, honestly, don't you think Polly Harvey is more likely to be studying Bobby Gillespie than Goya? Oh, right.

Really tried to love White Chalk but couldn't; the quieter moments on Uh Huh Her was scarier. She didn't come up with enough memorable melodies to compensate for her rudimentary piano playing (exception: "The Mountain").

I've been thinking about this. And I think the lyrics about bodies in trees are referring not to Goya but to a much greater artist, a visionary of Britain's decay and decline, a seer of conflict and unflinching reflecter of man's inhumanity to man: Bobby Gillespie. Specifcally, Beautiful Future

Now that I look at the rest of the lyrics to The Words That Maketh Murder I can see that you are right:

Syphillis
Brutal priest
Acid To-to-to-talitarian
Hitler stripper venomous
Syphilitic underwear.

For me Uh Huh Her proved that blood'n'guts had become a dead end - a lot of the noisier stuff (Cat on the Wall, Who the Fuck?) seemed like a failed attempt to revisit Rid of Me territory after the mainstreaming of Stories whereas Pocket Knife, Desperate Kingdom of Love etc pointed the way forward - quieter, spookier, more out of time.

I dunno if this is true generally - the loud bits on A Woman A Man Walked By were fantastic I thought.

Regarding SFJ: I think one of the tricky things about his role at the New Yorker is that he's not primarily writing about whether a new album is good/bad -- it's not a publication where the stand-alone quality of a record is of great concern. So it becomes more of a big-picture thing about the artist's career, in which case you could even think her current work is great, but still take the fairly common big-picture stance that it felt more vital in the past. (That's maybe a weird/pointless thing to mention for those of us who follow music, but if you're assuming part of your readership doesn't, then ... it's no stranger than if someone asked you "where do I start with PJ Harvey" and you named a record from 10-15 years ago.)

Granted, he's clear about just not thinking the new one's very good. I just think it's funny how differently music stuff communicates, depending on audience

That's true, it's tricky. I just don't know what the typical New Yorker reader's attitude to pop is. I can understand people who will want to read about the new PJ Harvey record and I can understand people who won't care at all but I can't see many people who are thus far ignorant of her but ready and willing to be turned on to Dry or To Bring You My Love for the first time, especially by a piece which is so negative about the new record. Inasmuch as there are New Yorker readers looking for introductions, I imagine they're eager to be keeping up with the culture, in however dilettantish a way - wanting to feel informed about the new MIA or Arcade Fire in the same way they want to know about the latest books, plays or movies - rather than to be getting back catalogue recommendations. Who wants to be told that they missed the boat 15 years ago?

Yeah, it's that weird format that's sort of a profile mixed with criticism, where it has to try and work for a bunch of different audiences, and no one in particular.

Anyway, I keep wanting to hear this album as a bunch of music about nation and history that's been destabilized, somehow, in some modern way -- but I can't entirely put my finger on what's destabilizing it. A lot of the sounds are washed out, or rub up against one another oddly, so it's like a warped reflection of folk ideas. But its methods of accomplishing that seem really hard to pin down.

It's very hard to nail. I'm still trying to work out what to write about it. Everything I've read about it so far, positive or negative, skirts that central puzzle.

Ha, I was reading something yesterday where Harvey described herself as being "confused" by one of her own albums, so those of us on the listening side should probably just embrace having no clue how it all fits together

intensity and thoughtfulness of critical engagement with theme, persona and method in this thread seems unusual for ILM. cool to see, though. is it because PJ harvey is a local favorite (i honestly don't know) or because she's making it clear that let england shake comes with significant conceptual freight?

have loved everything i've heard, esp "the words that maketh murder", "the last living rose", "the glorious land" and "bitter branches"

For me, it's the first album I've heard in ages which throws out a lot of apparently obvious clues — it's about England, it's about war, it's got massive, obvious samples and quotations — and yet slips away from you when you try and work out exactly how those clues work with (or against) each other, but then you still feel that if you thought about it hard enough you could make sense of it. Most analyses I've read depend on quoting only the lyrics that support one interpretation and ignoring all the ones that complicate it, which is the mark of a really meaty work of art.

I would also say that PJ Harvey has drifted completely away from the kinds of style-politics and audience-based stuff that allows for quick responses: no one reacts to her stuff with, like, "this is music for X type of people" or "I can't believe she's trying to stay relevant by attempting Y." She's pretty much in her own space, which is good in ways and bad in others, but the upshot seems to be that you either care about figuring it out or just ignore it completely.

massive, obvious samples?

That's a x-post question to Dorian. I haven't heard the album yet.

Well there's a huge sample of Niney's Blood and Fire, a famous bugle call (I forget what it's called), a melody from Istanbul not Constantinople and a line from Summertime Blues. That's a broad palette, which complicates the idea that it's just about England and folk music.

it's about England, it's about war, it's got massive, obvious samples and quotations — and yet slips away from you when you try and work out exactly how those clues work with (or against) each other, but then you still feel that if you thought about it hard enough you could make sense of it.

yes so otm. i'm not sure she's Saying Something on this album so much as expressing hard to pin down, oft-conflicting perspectives and feelings - much of the time the elation and horror and sentimentalism and sadness all seem to happen at the same time (those gorgeous sweeping melodies paired with lyrics about deformed children...). come to think of it this shouldn't be a surprise given how she usually tackles things.

this album really hit me listening to it on headphones while striding through the wind last night. some albums you're impatient to hear b/c the first listen will be such a massive hit - others, like this one, the impatience is b/c you want to get past the first confused listen where nothing's settled and you don't quite get it, because that hit will only take place a few listens in.

This seems like a good time to post a link to Ingrid Pitt's manifesto about England -- I haven't heard the new PJH record yet, but it made me think of this:
http://pittofhorror.com/message/index.htm

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/06/133495228/first-listen-pj-harvey-let-england-shake

not really feeling this at all. and i have liked most of what she's done up to now. where did her force go? where did her darkness go? where did her demons go? where is the rawness? it's wishy-washy, lukewarm, average, unexciting. maybe i'll change my mind tomorrow. but white chalk was an interesting new, emotional perspective whereas this simply does not touch me at all. yes and the autotuning or whatever this voice-processing is called is JUST TERRIBLE.

I listened to the NPR stream twice and thought it was ok--but the samples and the "Constantinople" reference highlight Harvey's inability here to craft great hooks or melodies of her own.

whut

You like it more and think it is catchy I guess?

it took a few listens to fall into place for me - and it did big time this weekend, partly because i spent a lot of time striding around london in the wind - it's real windy weather music - and not cuz it was "difficult" but because i thought it was slight. i was wrong! it's not at all slight, and there are many tunes.

Haven't listened to this yet, but reading about it makes me want to put on "Blood and Fire."

I've only heard about five songs from this but I'm amazed anyone could accuse them of lacking melodies.

She is clearly trying to be melodic, but I don't find the melodies memorable

And I've liked her in the past

I can't get most of these songs out of my head tbh, and like Lex I didn't really start liking it until I whacked it on my iPhone.

I actually woke up singing Written On The Forehead in my sleep this morning.

it took a few listens to fall into place for me - and it did big time this weekend, partly because i spent a lot of time striding around london in the wind - it's real windy weather music

just curious, were you going someplace? or do you say to yourself, "hmmm, i am going to go outside and stride around london in the wind listening to this new pj harvey record, then walk back to my flat"

This is...not the album I expected. I struggle to think of an American band that would have attempted something like this.

just curious, were you going someplace? or do you say to yourself, "hmmm, i am going to go outside and stride around london in the wind listening to this new pj harvey record, then walk back to my flat"

i walked to a pub in de beauvoir town on fri, back from brunch in lincoln's inn fields on sat and then walked to highgate and back to get over my hangover on sunday. i like being a flâneur.

I struggle to think of an American band that would have attempted something like this.

Any American band who would have attempted something like this would have looked and sounded ridiculous. You need to be English to pull it off really.

I've listened to the stream of the whole record now and love it, there's a real spectral English folk feel to it, fed through rock music but with the wisps and echoes of other things getting in the way. Love the ghostly Arabic vocals winding through 'England'. That said, I think the album's weirdness, sonically at least, is being exaggerated a bit, and I'm not sure it's that surprising to anyone who's heard White Chalk or the quieter bits of Is This Desire.

looking forward to hearing this - though not really stuck with an album of hers since uh huh her (which i liked). first track sounds like its going for a deliberate pastichey/sardonic feel. sounds quite sheened production wise actually.

i like it a lot so far. do wish she had retained the "Istanbul" sample on the title track, tho.

also, going back to White Chalk for the first time in years and i love it! weird--never expected that to happen.

not a PJ harvey fan

this is WONDERFUL

NME have given it 10/10, fwiw.

Interview and live session on BBC Radio 2 last night (Radcliffe & Maconie) worth catching on the website if you missed it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006wr8d

The 4-piece band was very tight. Of the songs, the first three were good but nothing special or anything, but the last one ("Written On The Forehead") was astonishing.

xpost I think it's weird in terms of it's atmosphere and the density of what it's trying to say rather than on a purely sonic level. It's not a difficult record, but it is a very strange one.

Re: NME mark, Q gave it 5/5 - I think SFJ could be the outlier here - I can't see any UK critic slamming it like he did

I wonder if there's an element of intentional un-learning going on with Harvey, as either exercise and inspiration. She started out, of course, leading a near-virtuoso power-trio, then shed the guitar for a bit. Lately she's taken up the Autoharp, arguably the most rudimentary instrument there is, after recording an album that spotlighted her nascent piano (non)skills. It's like she's going primitive in search of something primal.

That was my problem with White Chalk: her melodies weren't strong enough to compensate for the poor playing.

Coming at this as someone who hasn't heard a P J Harvey record all the way through since 'Stories From The City..." back in 2000, and who hasn't owned one since 'Rid Of Me' I've really been won over by this one. I approached with a bit of trepidation because I had the impression that this one was 'difficult' or 'challenging' and hey I'm a superficial kinda guy. Obviously the more one listens to it the more will be revealed but after 2 plays what stands out the most for me is how catchy it is, pretty bouncy and singalong. Getting ready for my third spin now. Will buy.

NME have given it 10/10, fwiw.

The first they've given since the Arctic Monkeys debut album in 2006 apparently.

Coincidentally they're about to give her a lifetime achievement award.

My wife's a way bigger PJ Harvey fan than I am. Before this, my favorite of her albums was Is This Desire?. Saw her live a few years ago - Hammerstein Ballroom, NYC. Terrific show. I never listened to White Chalk. That's all just backdrop to say that I heard this for the first time yesterday and really like it. It's a little bit Kate Bush - I don't remember Harvey's voice being this high before - a little bit Siouxsie, and a fair amount of Fairport Convention/Pentangle English folk weirdness. I will definitely be returning to it again.

I never listened to White Chalk.

in the spirit of making up ground for all the great jazz/metal recommendations i've gotten from you, just want to say white chalk is really something & you'd do yrself well to lend that one an ear alongside the new album

Yeah, I probably will dig it out. It wasn't like I was consciously avoiding it - "Oh, she plays piano? Fuck that!" I just had a lot of other stuff to listen to at the time, and then it slid beneath the tide of new stuff coming in the door.

Why she decided it would be a good idea to bury her vocals in the mix is beyond me.

erm, where has she done this?

At St. Peter's Church in Eype, Dorset.

i'm gonna buy this album. haven't heard it yet. i like what people are saying about it.

i finally heard white chalk last year and couldn't believe how good it was! and how dark it sounded. well, i guess i could believe it. i've loved her in the past. but, like, a long time past.

still have never heard the uh huh album before white chalk.

idk I guess it's not the terrible album I expected it to be based on the LOL90s Mobyish use of that sample on Written On The Forehead & that horribly out of tune Andrew Marr performance but in places the reverby, muffled sound of her voice makes it all so... fluffy, indistinct. Also most songs sound exactly the same production-wise. It's like they were all recorded the same day using the same instruments & narrow set of musical ideas, with no particular intent to achieve actual variation.

i still haven't listened to this record but everything that turangalila said makes me think i'll fucking love it

It has its moments! "On Battleship Hill," the dreamy brassy bits on "All & Everyone", the bridge of In the Dark Places, etc. I'd probably like it a lot more if the mixing wasn't as weird.

I'd probably reserve judgement on the mixing and production until we can all be sure we're not listening to a dodgy link recorded off an internet stream. But yeah, I'm sure it's meant to sound hazy. She's often drawn from a fairly limited pallette sonically and I'm sure that set of limitations is conscious - Dry, Rid Of Me, White Chalk and to an extent To Bring You My Love aren't exactly all over the place.

But there's actually a lot going on through the haze - the Arabic sounding vocals that weave right through 'England', the clashing hunting horns in 'The Glorious Land', the way 'The Words That Maketh Murder' suddenly tilts into country, obviously the "blood and fire" sample, but they're all meant to sound far away or out of place or seen through a kind of distant haze.

I think I was wrong upthread when I said it was a bunch of conflicting sonic signifiers of England, it's more the sonic signifiers of a particular kind of Englishness moving outward and coming into contact with other musics. I've only just started paying attention to it lyrically and, well, is there a single song from the perspective of someone that's actually *in* England? It doesn't sound like it. It's mostly people thrown out into the world through the demands of colonialism and war, and maybe one or two people from those countries regarding the English. Mostly from a male perspective as well, from what I can tell.

Also the title. England doesn't really shake in the way that most of these locations do throughout the album, or at least it hasn't in 60+ years. Is she saying it should have shaken more, or shake from fear, or shake like in dancing? I like the ambiguity.

Shake from colonial guilt.

Let England smdh

the LOL90s Mobyish use of that sample on Written On The Forehead

rmde

5/5 in the Graun as well

I keep coming back to that line "Should I take my problem to the United Nations?", which is all kinds of wonderful. Playful, but devastatingly sad, and absolutely right for the context, given that so many of the songs refer to the first world war, and the League of Nations was established to try to ensure that kind of carnage could never happen. Fifty-odd years ago, Eddie Cochran could refer to the UN on the understanding that even midwestern kids would understand that the UN was the ultimate arbiter of any and every dispute: hey mom, hey pop,, hey boss - you have to abide by what the UN will say (and it's not like there was no cynicism about the UN at that time: North by Northwest sets up its skullduggery in the UN building). Now, faced with the prospect of carnage, what happens if you take your problem to the United Nations? Not a thing. What a perfect lament for innocence, and for how the hopes of an entire century have been betrayed.

Oh I like that.

i guess it's the lyrical thrust that mostly codes as "hankering for a past england" to me - i agree that it's nowhere near as simple as that, it's one vibe i get out of many, but...kind of feel that the small-c conservativism that's always been present with PJH is much more important to this record than it has been previously

Just out of interest, do you still think this? Because that's not the vibe I get at all. Past Englishmen hankering for a past England maybe, but then I think I would if I were in the WW1 trenches as well.

mmm i don't know actually. i probably need to decide, i have to file on monday :/

I'm increasingly persuaded that every line here needs to be considered as coming from a narrator - I'm unconvinced by any reading that says Polly thinks this or that, especially not if it involves citing the most obviously quotable lyrics. Everything here needs to be looked at twice, especially the stuff that pretends to be clear and unambiguous.

New login BTW - sick of seeing my own name on the screen.

I'm increasingly persuaded that every line here needs to be considered as coming from a narrator

Yeah definitely, they're mostly male narrators as well from what I can tell.

Actually what a lot of the lyrical content really reminds me of is a couple of Paul Nash landscapes - that same uneasy combination of pastorality and battlefield carnage. Particularly this painting:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tuj6CIbZibk/S-Mu5z57pQI/AAAAAAAADA4/8KVmgfrZESQ/s1600/nash1.jpg

But there's probably a load of war poetry that takes the same approach, as I'm sure I'd know if I'd read any.

I think every song she's ever done has been from a narrator; hasn't she said that in as many words herself?

yeah i was thinking of paul nash too, matt!

I have a Q about the (male) backing vocals, is this John Parish?

xpost I agree, Nick, it's just that lots of the writing about this album has quoted lines like "Damn Europeans" as if that's Polly's own POV.

Backing vox shared among Parish, Mick Harvey and Jean-Marc Butty.

it is already kind of odd that she sings about england these days but she sings about england from 100 years ago or so. that is so anachronistic. i mean if she would have sung about the english troops in iraq, ok i would have seen a sense. something weird is going on in her brain, no? or is she maybe trying to find reasons for the current chaotic global situation in the outbreak of world war one? i haven't really listened to the lyrics, i am guessing from what i have read here.

Think of it as an extended metaphor. Just like the Roman Empire films being made at the moment are really about the US and Iraq.

Really really like what I've heard (the sampler). Was reading Walter de la Mare as I was going to sleep last night; the end of one poem (English Downs) and the beginning of another ('How Sleep the Brave') reminded me of what I'd been listening to earlier in the evening -

1

Meek harebell hung her head
Over the green-turfed chalk,
And the lambs with their dams foregathered
Where the shepherds talk.

2

Bitterly, England must thou grieve -
Though none of those poor men who died
But did within his soul believe
That death for thee was glorified.

And it reminded me there's a strong tradition in English poetry of bitter pastoral, bitter elegy. This album is really fitting into that for me. I love the lyrics to The Last Living Rose with its rather traditional English pastoral images mixed with the 'stinking alleys' - feels like Dickens. (really like that 'like gold, hastily sold' line - contemporary, historical, proverbial).

Then lines like 'I'm going to take my problems to the United Nations' have an almost Woody Guthrie feel to them. Then the vox and sample to England, or the use of Blood and Fire in Written on the Forehead perhaps suitably enough reminds me of Kipling 'What should they know of England that only England know'.

In answer to alex in manhattan, yeah, what ithappens said, but also trying to deal with the contemporary in that respect can, I think, strike a false note. I quite like some Billy Bragg, but Tom D's 'prolier than thou' description in another thread is also undeniable. I feared for this album because political engagement in art is a difficult trick to pull off (for me the political wing of art tends to be satire) but I think PJ Harvey manages the difficult trick very well, and she does it so well by taking tangential lines - characters, historical approaches.

I also like how embedded in the mix her voice is (I would I guess in one way - Fall stan), but aside from personal taste it all seems to fit with a slightly dank, folk gothic feel to the music. It draws you in, the voice is woven into the music, which given the way the music is forcibly reminding me of all these different elements, is a way of unifying the personal stamp of Polly with the wider political and international elements of the music and lyrics.

I'm really looking forward to hearing the full thing, and it's already looking like it will stand up there with Rid of Me as my favourite album by her, and therefore one of my favourite albums by anyone.

Just heard an interview on TV, and the music is v stripped down melodies, seems to take a while for the ear to notice. She also stressed that words are her starting point, how she flips from prose to poetry, etc.

I think the Daily Express' reviewer nails it here: http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/view/228361/Review-PJ-Harvey-Let-England-Shake

haha!

That is actually the lead review on the Express music page today. Fucking useless.

Why would PJH be in a police line up in the first place? Excessive solipsism near an exposed chalk escarpment after the hours of sundown?

tl;dr.

Simey G Gagegarten

He's just bitter that they didn't call it Let England Leave The EU

Let England Shake (The Paedophiles Until They Die)

lol @ daily express

look mommy i can write about music!

The Express should take that approach to all their journalism. "Muslims, not really our cup of tea".

Just heard this in full for the first time. Awesome.

Vague thoughts. http://sickmouthy.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/polly-jean/

on my second listen i quite enjoyed the first half of the album. and got bored in the second half. it is definitely a solid record but i don't get all that hype. i still think that dry was her best and after that it went all downhill. what you wrote in your blog about her not being the person she sings about definitely makes a lot of sense and maybe i did fall into the authenticity trap in the beginning. but what i really liked about dry was it straightforwardness whereas this new one seems rather opaque and misty to me. quite english, actually.

does anyone have any ideas re: where "written on the forehead" is set? all the other songs that make specific locatory references are to do with gallipoli, but "dinars" in the lyric suggests otherwise for "...forehead"...

dinars has to mean iraq, right? "trench of burning oil" fits too (1991 and 2003).

yes! duh. was too caught up in WW1 to realise.

Lex: A mutual friend of ours left this comment after my review on tQ about the song Written On The Forehead: PJ actually makes a reference to a renowned NYT Iraq correspondant Anthony Shadid on Written on the Forehead. The belly dancers are from Shadid's 2005 book Night Draws Near, "an empathetic look at how the war has impacted the Iraqi people beyond the clichés of liberation and insurgency".

interesting! the "generator" ref fits, too, given how big an issue electricity is there.

am hoping i don't miss any references that are too obvious - i can't read other people's reviews before i've finished my own but i'm def looking fwd to reading the quietus one, maura's, a ton of others.

I had a nervous read through about twenty after finishing my own. Make sure you start with The Daily Express' words of wisdom if you haven't already.

i made an exception for that one :D

Her vocal at the start of On Battleship Hill is just astonishing. Shivers down spine every time I hear it.

25 plays in and still loving it! "The Words That Maketh Murder" is possibly my favourite thing I've heard so far this year. Love love love the backing vocals on it, sounding like it should be a musical interlude in a 1950's Western with cowboys crooning away in the background.

i hate the reveille horns on 'the glorious land.' i've never been so distracted by shtick on a song since Eminem's "Stan" (once you start noticing the writing sound on Stan you can never unhear it)

I keep coming back to that line "Should I take my problem to the United Nations?", which is all kinds of wonderful. Playful, but devastatingly sad, and absolutely right for the context, given that so many of the songs refer to the first world war, and the League of Nations was established to try to ensure that kind of carnage could never happen. Fifty-odd years ago, Eddie Cochran could refer to the UN on the understanding that even midwestern kids would understand that the UN was the ultimate arbiter of any and every dispute: hey mom, hey pop,, hey boss - you have to abide by what the UN will say (and it's not like there was no cynicism about the UN at that time: North by Northwest sets up its skullduggery in the UN building). Now, faced with the prospect of carnage, what happens if you take your problem to the United Nations? Not a thing. What a perfect lament for innocence, and for how the hopes of an entire century have been betrayed.

― Alan Partridge Project (ithappens), Thursday, February 10, 2011 4:18 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

i like this song, and the way the album sounds, but... no. no, no. just no. moving away from hollywood thrillers, no. or: from what i understand, the world was a pretty violent place even before 2003, and there may have been one or two disputes in which the UN did not act as ultimate arbiter.

Ok, "The Colour of the Earth" is really pretty.

xpost to History Mayne: in the Eddie Cochran line, I'm referring to what that line could signify to a kid 50 years ago. Not the actual political reality. I understand the UN actually proved to be toothless before Iraq. I'm not that stupid,

BEST

NEW

MUSIC

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15120-let-england-shake/

jesus christ who gives a fuck about "best new music" that it merits all caps?

also i've filed my review so can i have some links to other people's to read?

(not p4k.)

BEST

NEW

VITRIOL

i don't get it though, why is "best new music" an omg-worthy thing? it tells you that this unanimously critically respected artist has...gained some more critical plaudits? does that label give you any insight into the album? who gives a fuck.

...

My review for tQ

i don't get it though, why is "best new music" an omg-worthy thing? it tells you that this unanimously critically respected artist has...gained some more critical plaudits

Isn't it just the label that every mainstream publication sticks on their music section?

pj harvey isn't 'unanimously critically respected'

the daily express isn't keen

She's about as close to unanimously critically respected as any artist I can think of. I'd put her up with people like Robert Wyatt in that you very rarely read a half-arsed or dismissive review of her, even when the reviewer isn't mad about the record itself.

yeah, i'll agree with that.

just based on conversations i've had, p sure it wldn't be that diff to round up a bunch of critics who were prepared to say that she's a very minor, even absurdly overrated artst. i'm sure the same is true of most 'critical darlings' (eg its pretty easy to search ilx and find mark s slagging off robert wyatt)

I think this is her best record in a decade. Reminds of "The Good, the Bad and the Queen," for lots of reasons.

i...would actually agree, yes! i think - though ranking her albums feels odd, with this so fresh out - i would only really rank is this desire? ahead of it. wow, seems weird to remember first hearing "written on the forehead" and going hmmmm is this where i fall out of love with her.

I'm still warming to this: using her high register again has been the biggest obstacle. I've paid scant attention to the lyrics.

i found the high register a problem with "written on the forehead" when it first leaked also (moreso than the samples, which also took some warming up to but i find them integral to the song now) - i think the fact that she uses it consistently on the album made it somewhat easier to take in a way?

title track is just about the best PJ Harvey thing i've ever heard. kinda reminds of Wild Beasts for some reason.

haven't heard this yet, but gotta say that the extremely divergent reviews i've read of it are really interesting. seems to be a love it or hate it kind of thing ...

Yeah, last night I read SFJ's thrashing of this album, then woke up to the glowing Pfork review. The divergence is making me want to hear it more than anything else, really.

What was SFJ's reasoning behind trashing it?

Iirc correctly, he really hated her whole approach on White Chalk and considers this barely a minor improvement over that one's "low bar" (his term). He calls some of the protest songs too obvious and that the whole record is "pear-shaped". Its hard to read any specific criticism, just that he really really hates her curretn direction in general (so, grain of salt I suppose, if you liked the last one).

I quite liked White Chalk, but not really more than that. This one though, I ADORE.

What was SFJ's reasoning behind trashing it?

Not enough noisy guitars.

Any American band who would have attempted something like this would have looked and sounded ridiculous. You need to be English to pull it off really.

Starting to reconsider this statement, if you mean a similar approach to American history. But the only band that's readily coming to mind are late-80s R.E.M - the band that wrote 'Cuyahoga' and 'Swan Swan H'. I'm not sure they'd have nailed the sheer bleakness though, and the lack of sentimentality.

They mispronounced Cuyahoga, for starters

Unusually, I've remained mum until now. The reviews have rushed to acclaim this as a masterpiece because it's so fucking bizarre. Harvey almost succeeds in making this particular experiment work, but in essence it's The Suburbs recast in an English manner. That's what I wrote in my review.

So, she'll get a grammy next year?

I agree with SFJ about the failings of "White Chalk," at least generally (not knowing his exact reasons), but I think this is a vastly more interesting/compelling improvement.

The Suburbs comparison is tenuous to the point of being meaningless.

yeah alfred is yr review anywhere? i'd like to read what you meant

It's here.

Sinead O'Connor is a good comparison point though.

thx

i dont know if i can quite follow the logic at the end there where the comparison happens

Yes, the Sinead comparison is spot-on. I'm enjoying looking for that strain of ancient/modern, English/foreign storytelling in other records: Rum, Sodomy & the Lash and The Good, The Bad & the Queen seem like kindred spirits too.

Rum, Sodomy and the Lash an obvious comparison as well for its cover of And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda.

Still really loving this.

I like how candid she's been about her influences. I wouldn't normally link my own stuff here but this influence-tracking write-up (not quite a review) might be of interest.

http://33revolutionsperminute.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/pj-harvey%E2%80%99s-universal-soldier/

ha, some good spots in there - i've seen people refer to the "england" one as bollywood, of all things. several i hadn't caught. i only got round to seeing her andrew marr performance* this morning, so the constantinople one escaped me - i assume the actual sample would have been in an early demo?

*this was rather odd! sounds nothing like it does on record, also weirdly muffled. maybe just tv sound.

i also only just got round to watching the videos she's made for these - i guess they're ok, if a little clichéd. film-makers' vision not on a par with hers, i guess. i like that she got some random westcountry villager to read out her lyrics as the intro to "let england shake".

xpost I'm also tempted to suggest the late 60s English folk rock scene, where Fairport were playing English ballads alongside Dylan songs, though there isn't the explicitly political edge edge of the TGTBTQ, Rum etc and Let England Shake. But those groups were dealing in a version of explicit Englishness that took from ancient and modern, and near and far.

The fact that the sample in England is Kurdish feels significant. I really want to know what the original song is about actually. I've had a nagging feeling throughout that the narrator in that song isn't actually English.

Someone suggested to me Shirley and Dolly Collins' 1969 album Anthems of Eden, which is about the impact of WWI on rural England. It's on Spotify as part of the Harvest Years comp. Very, very ye olde folke musick but in the right ballpark thematically.

The influence that surprised me was the Doors. I'm not a fan so when she mentioned them I thought "Really?" but Waiting for the Sun definitely as some similarities. Actually scratch that - the REALLY surprising influence is The Police's Bed's Too Big Without You on The Glorious Land ("contains elements from" according to the credits)

Re: talking about the present via the past, the story that always makes me laugh is when the Zombies' US label chose the dirgey Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914) as a single because they mistakenly assumed it was an allegory for Vietnam. Perhaps only the Zombies could write a song like that in 1968 and NOT intend it as an allegory for Vietnam.

Even Billy Bragg, who's woven William Blake and Thomas Paine into his songs, who's sung about the 30s as a reference to Britain in the 80s, who's covered songs about the English civil war … as a reference to Britain in the 80s, who's adapted American folksongs … as a reference to Britain in the 80s.

Haven't heard this in full yet, but all this talk of England and its wars past and present makes me think of last year's These New Puritans album. Lyrically that album was a lot less specific than it sounds like this one is, and where it was specific it was pretty esoteric, so it's hard to make much of a comparison there. And obviously they inhabit separate sonic universes, but I do get the sense though that they're both letting these historically and geographically diverse elements explode out into the here and now in a much messier way than a lot of these other records.

This is a really bad review. It should be replaced by a picture of the writer shrugging and the words "I don't get it".

http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/6221

So that review in brief: Never mind the body parts, here's the party tunes! Oh, but I don't like it.

White Chalk wasn't 2009. The second Parish was.

It leads the listener into blind alleys, manipulates the emotions in odd and unsettling ways

this is...a good thing?

Almost every line misses the point in some spectacular way. It's one of those reviews that's so misguided it makes me not want to trust anything this writer says about anything ever again.

Maura's interview with her is up:

http://www.emusic.com/features/spotlight/2011_201102-qa-pj-harvey.html

this is...a good thing?

Yes, of course, some times. There are times when I want comfort music, but other times where I want to be unsettled and challenged by what I hear.

I think that's what Lex meant.

ha no i meant it IS a good thing, as in "this is a good thing though"

xp

also i didn't realise she recorded this in a church! who else has recorded an album specifically in a church - tori amos' boys for pele obv, any others?

love music in churches

Spirit of Eden, iirc.

Arcade Fire's Neon Bible was recorded in a renovated church - one I know you love, Lex.

lol

diamanda galás' plague mass iirc? a live performance in a cathedral to boot.

Not really of great relevance but the new Tim Hecker was done in a church.

At least a couple of Sunn0)))) albums -- and what could be more lex?

if we're gonna consider albums recorded in churches, I'm putting this up there with Trinity Sessions.

http://www.realwestdorset.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Eype-centre-for-arts-church-st-peter-chris-downer-licensed-reuse-creative-commons-licence.jpg

Reassuringly creepy looking.

Having held off until I could buy it -- yeah, pretty excellent, the negative reviews are cloth-eared foolishness, etc. More than anything I'm appreciative of its slippery sonic variety, there is no one sound throughout and I'm glad of it.

What Ned said.

I'm not a PJ Harvey fan at all but I'm feeling this record hard. In addition to the 60s/70s folk/-rock references, the first thing hearing the album all through reminded me of the folkier moments of Stevie Nicks/FM.

Weren't a few Belle & Sebastian bits recorded in a church? Perhaps some of 'If You're Feeling Sinister', certainly some early EPs were.

that's a great interview w/ maura, thanks for sharing -- amazing how she gets so much out of harvey by not asking too many questions but mainly just discussing the record, her impressions, and letting harvey run w/ it

i picked this up yesterday and am collecting my thoughts. in general, i'd concur w/ ned on the sonic variety, the whole thing sounds absolutely gorgeous. not feeling the political bent of the lyrics too much. they seem coming from a very personal and resonant place for harvey herself, but don't really resonate 100% with me on first blush.

Lots of albums have been recorded in churches, from "The Trinity Sessions" to the latest Mellencamp.

The two tracks I've heard off this are really good. Did she change the way she sings or something?
I haven't ever listened to PJ except for hearing her on the radio. I am going to buy this one.

If all you've heard of PJ Harvey is from the radio, you've got lots of good stuff in store!

On a record as "literary" as this, I must admit that the erroneous grammar of "The Words That Maketh Murder" bugs me a bit.

never been much of a PJH fan, but this disc is fantastic.

comparisons aren't needed, obv., but the title track is giving me a siouxsie and the banshees vibe.

As good an album as she's ever made. Also as good an album as Nick Cave's ever made, if you see what I mean.

Better!

Yeah, was going to say -- Saint Nick has pretty clearly reached his limits in Bad Seeds mode; Grinderman works by specific contrast. Whereas this is PJH going "okay, level up."

Fair play to you. And well put.

This has gone to the near top of my best of 2011 list, thinking this deserves an actual purchase (shame on me, I know). I never really gave her a chance after listening to Rid of Me... the vox were just way too abrasive for my taste, too hard to bear without wincing. Really love how she can still have the same lyrical drive here, tho, and not have to test my sensibilities. I mean it's the first album in a long time that I haven't considered a grower.

rid of me is the last abrasive album she made, so you would probably like a fair amount of her work after

I found "White Chalk" abrasive for different reasons, tbh.

Saint Nick has pretty clearly reached his limits in Bad Seeds mode

People have said this for years, decades even, but I would never discount Cave. His last two Bad Seeds records are arguably the strongest of his career, and if you toss in the two Grinderman discs, he's certainly working at a career peak. To suggest he can't or won't top it discounts his history, which underscores the contrary. If anything, calling Ellis up from the minors to take over for Blixa as chaos foil has done him a lot of good.

is nick doing another bad seeds album?

great show tonight!

she did the entirety of let england shake + the guns called me back again/the devil/the sky lit up/pocket knife/down by the water/c'mon billy/big exit, then for the encore, meet ze monsta/angelene/silence.

everything played fairly faithfully to the recorded versions, esp the new songs - "the glorious land" was particularly great i thought, the way she plays with her voice on the "america"s really stood out. loved how random the trawl through her back catalogue was - "the sky lit up" warmed my heart, as did her dance moves (yes) to "pocket knife". "the devil" was just incredible. on a lot of the songs there were these roaming spotlights over the audience that kind of evoked the blitz, a bit? and it felt appropriate that it was in a random east end bingo hall (that seemingly no one in london had heard of before). also loved the weird disjoint between her current garb (white victorian shroud + witchy feather headdress) and the glam rocking numbers like "big exit". good show! can't believe i hadn't seen her since the stories era.

I would LOVE to hear her do The Sky Lit Up live.

i actually made an excited noise out loud when that started

Almost identical set list to the night before. Great gig right? Good to see her playing guitar again and a real treat to hear three songs from To Bring You My Love.

what were the differences (if you remember?)

for some reason as soon as she played "the sky lit up" i KNEW "angelene" was coming - one of her past songs that i feel jives best w/the sensibility of LES.

This is what I had her down as playing on Sunday: 'Let England Shake'
'The Words That Maketh Murder'
'All And Everyone'
'The Big Guns Called Me Back Again'
'Written On The Forehead'
'In The Dark Places'
'The Devil'
'The River'
'The Sky Lit Up'
'The Glorious Land'
'The Last Living Rose'
'England'
'Bitter Branches'
'Down By The Water'
'C'Mon Billy'
'Hanging In The Wire'
'On Battleship Hill'
'Big Exit'
'The Colour Of The Earth'

'Meet Ze Monster'
'Angelene'
'Silence'

oh shit you got "the river", sooo jealz

I remember when I saw her a few years back how "Meet Ze Monster" practically peeled the paint from the walls.

these set lists are admirably varied.

would kill to see her live, she never seems to come to texas though :(

wow she bolts from CA to NY for 3 dates and then is done with the States entirely

it's not a huge tour, but is she usually not so keen on touring in our fatherland?

Other than her SxSW show w/Parrish in '09, I don't think she's been to Texas since she opened for U2 back in like 2002.

i tried to get into the parish show, it was PACKED :(

this is a great, detailed interview in, of all places, PJH's local dorset newspaper: http://www.bridportnews.co.uk/news/localnews/8813041.Bridport__Local_rock_star_PJ_Harvey_talks_to_the_News/

going back to something matt mentioned about "england" earlier:

Going back to a song like ‘England’, which you pulled a lyric out of, you’ll hear a little sample of a very, very old Kurdish folk song. A woman singing to her beloved, and I wanted to keep that little sample in there because I had been listening to that and there was something about the emotion there that I wanted to bring into my love song to England. So there are these two love songs, hers is Kurdish, and mine is English and they cross in the middle.

"England" & "Written on the Forehead" are the only two songs I actively hate here.

The rest of the record has grown on me.

I adore WOTF.

Interesting point about her not playing an instrument except when she's writing or rehearsing, and about wanting/needing to be a 'beginner' in order to capture feel. Another songwriter I interviewed years ago said something very similar; after years of writing on guitar and 'drying up' he took up piano and got his second wind.

i thought what she said about composing melodies around words she'd already written, finding the rhythm they already had, was super interesting.

Oh did she? I had wondered. The words are too chiseled to be written for the melodies.

"England" & "Written on the Forehead" are the only two songs I actively hate here.

Crazy talk.

why doncha send you problems to the United Nations?

wow so she doesn't exactly do 'the hits' live then?

i don't think she ever has. (like...what even are pj harvey's "hits", anyway? her highest charting single was "a perfect day elise" of all things.) it's a good thing, when you have as much excellent material tucked away in the crevices of your back catalogue like she does. fuck the audiences who just want songs they recognise.

"England" & "Written on the Forehead" are the only two songs I actively hate here.

"england" is the only one i've come to skip, though that's not the same as disliking it, and i think it's probably one of the most crucial songs on the album - perfectly placed in the centre imo.

besides, I assume PJ Harvey concert attendees love "C'mon Billy" as much as "The Wind," "Who The Fuck," and "Written on the Forehead."

There aren't many artists with a fanbase as devotional as PJ Harvey, they'd be perfectly happy with that setlist I'd imagine.

I'd think of "The Hits" or at least the favourites in PJ Harvey terms as, I dunno, 50ft Queenie, Sheela-Na-Gig, Good Fortune, Perfect Day Elise, Down By The Water. But it's hardly like going to see Blur or someone is it?

Ie if you go to see PJ Harvey play live while promoting a new album and expect endless big hits you're at the wrong gig.

Peej covering "There's No Other Way," on the other hand.....

i was actually thinking whether any song she chose would be an excuse for me to go to the bar, and i'm not sure there is* - indeed the songs that hadn't leapt out on record for me were some of last night's highlights ("the guns called me back again" and "pocket knife" in partic) - def one of those cases where seeing them performed live lets you hear them from another angle.

*maybe if she ever brings thom yorke out on stage for "this mess we're in"

There aren't many artists with a fanbase as devotional as PJ Harvey

remember seeing tori amos once and i think the first six tracks she played were b-sides and random compilation tracks <3

i saw her a couple of times back in the day but that was in like 93/94 when she only had 2 albums or whatever. i mean when you go and see your Tori or your Rufus they still play your 'cigarettes and chocolate milk's and your 'silent all these years' and what have you despite the fact that they are you know 'serious artists' and ting.

hmmm not really - tori makes a point of not doing this, it's not uncommon for her to pretty much avoid all her singles, especially the big ones. i don't think that's just because they're being "serious", either, more just because they have a fuckton of material in their back catalogue and don't especially prioritise the "hits".

don't think i've ever seen tori perform "silent all these years" actually, and definitely not "cornflake girl" (talking of songs that would enable me to go to the bar)

and the one time i've seen her play "crucify" it was a completely altered and kinda unrecognisable version on what appeared to be a fairground organ, and she forgot the words halfway through.

thats surprising abt cornflake girl, i remember my gf saying that she's played it pretty much every times shes seen her

the Quietus review of this made pseuds corner in the latest private eye

I think that Quietus review is awesome.

In The Dark Places

A typical small-hours gloom descends over this stealthy, blues-dappled track as Harvey ponders what unpleasantness might be lurk in the nation's hedgerows: "Are your men hid with guns / In the dirt, in the dark places?"

Highlight of my writing career so far. I genuinely don't know what to aim for now. The Bad Sex Award?

(Thanks for the kinds words btw.)

Agree with Nick.

wowza, finally got this. played it 3 times in a row. bought it at the chain store across the street for $18.05. they finally got a copy. anyway, really dig it.

I'm struggling between deciding whether I should buy this or Charlotte Gainsbourg's IRM on vinyl. They're both such great fucking records, but I only have $20.

save that money for annette peacock's i am the one which has just been rereleased. compared to those two elves the real thing.

can't remember the last time i paid $18+ for a CD

i only buy one or two CDs a year.

recent live show.

http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=722

just found out i'll be in NY the week of her Terminal 5 shows, want a ticket sooo bad O_O

someone's got a spare ticket, right...?

;_;

im loving this. it makes me feel bad for ignoring her since "rid of me" tbh.

I cannot believe how she sounds on this

seriously amazing

you didn't miss much imo though white chaulk was kind of a dry run for this one

xp

My favourite album of 2011 thus far, and also my favourite PJ Harvey album ever. I've often respected her work more than I've loved it, but this album just keeps on giving.

i really smh at some of the younger ilmers who'll rep for any old p4k shit failing to show any interest in pj harvey. j0rdan, k3v, alex in montreal, looking at you all!

A few weeks ago, in thrall to this record, I relistened to Uh Huh Her, an album I'd firmly stuck in my top ten in 2004; now it played like a collection of well-intentioned B-sides, a series of poses she'd mostly ougrown.

*outgrown

It says a lot that she's still bothering to grow though.

she sounds so at ease now

I've always found her confidence really inspiring. I know that sounds corny, but I always appreciated that she didn't seem like the sort of person who sought external approval; she just does what she does and fuiud.

^^ yep

i like the new one a lot, but still think White Chalk is miles better & more accomplished :/

what ilxor said.

OTM description of Uh Huh Her, Alfred. It's interesting that the only song she really rates from that album is Desperate Kingdom of Love, which points to the future when so many of the other tracks look to the past. That album feels like a house-clearing exercise to me - something that had to happen in between Stories (which is her least favourite album) and the next phase of her songwriting.

I agree with Mike too - my favourite PJ record and my favourite album of 2011 so far.

i kind of agree that UHH sounds like house-clearing b-sides in a way - it's scratchy, a bit thrown together, not a work with an overarching aesthetic - but at its best i think it's way more than that, and definitely not just a series of poses; and its "at its best" deceptively often. dorian, where did she say that re: "desperate kingdom"?

I'd say White Chalk is a bit patchy but often sublime whereas the new one is consistently great and feels more like you could credibly say "it's her masterpiece".

I think she said it to a friend of mine who interviewed her - I don't think it made it into print.

Shame, Pocket Knife, The Darker Days of Me & Him are all great. Who the Fuck? is the worst.

Agree on "The Darker Days of Me & Him" and "The Letter."

THIS RECORD IS NOT VERY GOOD

JESUS PEOPLE

I'm more of an agnostic person. (Not about PJ, though.)

Polly Jesus Harvey

Granted I come not as a longtime fan of PJ, but as someone who hasn't listened to her regularly since the late 90's, but I just don't get why this is being so widely hailed as a masterpiece. I mean, there are a handful of lovely tunes on here but too many cringe-worthy moments to make it even an enjoyable listen all the way through.

some great lyrical moments I'm just coming to terms w/

fog rolling down
behind the mountains
all the graveyards
and dead sea captains
let me walk
through the stinking alleys
to the music
of drunken beatings
past the thames
river glistening
like gold hastily sold
for nothing

Think that might be my favourite bit on the whole album (the last four lines specifically).

if there's a way to be sweeping in scope and appear off-handed simultaneously she did it right there

nice trick pj

What's a cringe-worthy moment, jon? Apart from the bugle call, which takes some getting used to, I can't see what would qualify.

Edward III OTM - that passage slays me.

tf is w/ all this backlash against the bugle call? i thought it complimented the song nicely and didn't think it was an entirely ~edgy~ move considering the past 10yrs has been the product of random samples interjecting songs...evident in a lot of bands.

and i'm not just gaining this from here - seems like a lotta reviews i've read go out of their way to isolate this bugle call as a possible fault of the album. it encompasses, what, like a total of 20seconds?

What's a cringe-worthy moment

the entirety of England

"england" is my least favourite but i don't get what's cringeworthy about it, it works on its own prickly, conflicted terms.

i love the bugle hall! it sounds like it's carried on the wind and really isn't all that jarring.

*call

It's out of time and tune with the rest of the song - not saying it's a dealbreaker, just assuming that if jon had problems with the album that would be one of them.

Why is everyone so down on England? The sample? Polly's voice?

my 7 year old daughter's take on the bugle call:

"I like it cause it's like real life, it doesn't always go along with the music"

Your 7-year-old has a point.

It's out of time and tune with the rest of the song

yeah - i like the way this makes it seem like it's outside the song, from somewhere else entirely - this is pretty much my experience of the hunting bugle in real life too

ha yeah, your 7-yr-old otm edward!

It's the most extreme album of her sampling policy throughout the album - samples as intruders.

Hate to be such a prime purveyor of indie-pop, but Person Pitch I very much remember critics squirming over the zombie moans in "Bros". They had little to do with, nor complimented, the melody. But it kept things v interesting and kinda entertaining, as if you were not listening to an mp3 file but a room in which this shit is really happening. Same kinda application for the bugle call: It's like PJ's singing above the backdrop of a war.

I missed a lot of the discussion here, but the bugle call isn't really one of my main beefs. It is awkward, but I get why its there. The moments that make me cringe are the appropriation of the "Summertime Blues" lyrics. Again, I kinda get it, it just pulls me out of the song every time. The "Blood and Fire" sample also sounds really misplaced to my ears too, just ruins the song for me. Its just more frustrating because there are some truly gorgeous tunes on here, but too many moments that just throw me right out of her world.

this is my daughter's new favorite album btw

she calls her pg harpy

Ha, jon, you've described precisely the two bits that hooked me on first listen and still make my spine tingle.

Heh, fair play, I just feel like she spens a good part of the rest of the album establishing this foggy, haunting mood and those bits just pull me right out of it.

Ha, jon, you've described precisely the two bits that hooked me on first listen and still make my spine tingle.

Cosign.

pg harpy!!

Ha, jon, you've described precisely the two bits that hooked me on first listen and still make my spine tingle.

Me too! The "Summertime Blues" lyric might be the best use of irony in song since ... well, forever.

and if you're still complaining, send them to the United Nations.

The "Blood and Fire" sample also sounds really misplaced to my ears too, just ruins the song for me.

yeah i def understand you on this one - for ages i couldn't really get into "written on the forehead", i only started enjoying it after hearing it in album context, and it's still not a favourite per se. still think that's way more jarring than the bugle sample.

I adore Written On The Forehead. Might be my favourite track.

i guess a poll thread is inevitable but my fav track is either "let england shake" or "the glorious land"

Let England Shake is the one I might conceivably skip, it feels a bit lightweight in comparison to what follows. I love the whole thing but 'On Battleship Hill' and the final three songs are what really does it for me.

I think of this album as one long overarching statement but the high delicate head voice on "On Battleship Hill" is the moment I find transcendent, when the whole thing shift from being great to jaw-dropping.

Yes, that specific bit is amazing.

ha, i often end it before the final three songs. i think of "all and everyone" as the album's necessary centrepiece...

I seriously can't get over how she's changed up her sound. Does she still use the heavier chest voice on her older stuff when she performs live?

ha, i often end it before the final three songs.

omg

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the problems people are having with the bugle sample. All the songs are written from the soldiers' vantage point, and the words are full of brutal details about blood-coloured earth and chunks of flesh strewn about. I heard the bugle as just another element in the songs that's supposed to transport you to a certain time and place and to make the images in the lyrics that much more vivid.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the problems people are having with the bugle sample

I keep wanting to write something about the people who feel this way but it always devolves into abuse and groundless insults.

Just to make sure I'm not the target of any additional abuse, I don't have a problem with that part!

It's just... if it wasn't an instrument, would people be freaking out over it? IT FUNCTIONS AS A SOUND EFFECT, IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BEAT MATCH OR BE IN THE SAME KEY

B-b-b-b-b-but Lex, that last song is SO DEVASTATING!

i don't like the bugle sample cos it sounds like its from a bugs bunny cartoon or something, totally detracts from the mood for me. blood & fire sample on the other hand makes that song.

iono, to me it makes war seem silly - as if THESE are the mere sounds that drive men to their deaths. a fucking bugle. admittedly, not sure if pj had this intention in mind.

Is there a bugle backlash? I only mentioned it because I was guessing (wrongly) that it was one of jon's cringe-worthy moments. I've got no issue with it although I admit the first time I heard it on my computer I assumed it was coming from another browser window.

xpost to DJP - yeah, she changes her voice to suit the song live so the old stuff still sounds as it did.

that is so rad

I've always liked her voice but dammit she is legit

I think of this album as one long overarching statement but the high delicate head voice on "On Battleship Hill" is the moment I find transcendent, when the whole thing shift from being great to jaw-dropping.

this is OTM. I used to rate TBYML as her best because it sounded so otherworldly, but this one takes it.

i'm the only one to find some of the lyrics kinda awkward/terrible?

singing about how "indifference won" seems clumsy and heading out to "the fountain of death" is probably more of a death metal metaphor than clever folk-rock...

these lines seem to be trying to hard and failing

How is our glorious country ploughed?
Not by iron ploughs
Our lands is ploughed by tanks and feet.

Oh, America
Oh, England

and these are just (laughably) awful

"What is the glorious fruit of our land?
Its fruit is deformed children."

OR AM I CRAAZY?

i think the deformed children line works because it's such a singalong section that it sounds unhinged rather than preachy.

Yeah it works because it's in the middle of what's essentially a jaunty folk song.

okay, english isn't my first language so i'm probably off on this - still sounds very weird to me.

Yeah, I think the juxtaposition of jaunty folk tempos and melodies with really stark and bleak lyrics makes it work, and in fact work (for me) incredibly well. Likewise the last song, which has such a lovely melody, and such deadpan delivery, but such utterly bereft lyrics...

jaunty folk tempos and melodies with really stark and bleak lyrics
i mean, this is a large percentage of trad folk music, no? girls being led to the river and then murdered, shot by their lovers accidentally mistaken for swans, men hanged for poaching deer to feed their families, dead children coming back to scold their mothers -- this is traditional folk

i think she's working within the tradition instead of creating some horrific subversion of it, is what i'm trying to say

Oh yeah, totally; the things she's adding are textural rather than ideological - the samples, the shoegazey haze and shimmer on some songs. She'd modernised it slightly, not transformed it. How it's different is that so much modern crossover/pop folk (Cuntfords etc) doesn't (to my ears) have that nasty dark underbelly. Which makes her more faithful to the spirit of folk than others, even while she's dropping in reggae samples.

show in SF last night was great, but I do have to say that I wish I was sitting down for a lot of it (part of this is because I'm old now); the new album is good live but it doesn't lend itself super well to 'really crowded standing up' sort of evening. set list was similar to the other one I saw except she played the older tracks in the middle of the set rather than leaving them to the end. good to hear some white chalk material live. crazy bird-bride outfit and hair.

Finally picked up the vinyl of this. Love it. But no download voucher???

This is still awesome.

Still album of the year as far as I'm concerned

Funny timing on the revive, I just pulled this out for another spin and, while it is sounding pretty good today, the fatal flaws I outlined at some point in this thread are still holding me back from joining in the widespread praise for this.

xp
not sure about that. it's a tough call between low and polly jean. right now it is low for me. they deliver something pj doesn't deliver. not sure how to call it. spirituality, communality, heart?

I hesitate too.

nah it's awesome, all time imo

and the last pj album I wholeheartedly loved was 4 track demos

i haven't been listening to a lot of new music this year really but i really like "the last living rose"

I adore this utterly.

I like White Chalk more, but yeah this is quite good.

alex otm

it's fantastic, though it worked for me more back in late winter/early (Chicago) spring than it does now that it's gorgeous outside.

New iTunes session is terrific. The versions of the songs from England are great and it's interesting hearing her sing a few of her older tunes in her new, higher register, particularly "Down By the Water".

And England hasn't dimmed at all since its release for me, I adore it.

pretty amazing gig at the royal albert hall last night. setlist -

Let England Shake
The Words That Maketh Murder
All And Everyone
The Guns Called Me Back Again
Written On The Forehead
In The Dark Places
The Devil
Dear Darkness
The Glorious Land
The Last Living Rose
England
Pocket Knife
Bitter Branches
On Battleship Hill
Down By The Water
C'mon Billy
The Piano
Big Exit
Hanging In The Wire
The Colour Of The Earth
-------------------------------
The Desperate Kingdom Of Love
White Chalk
The Sky Lit Up
Angelene
Silence

Great wasn't it? Though it felt more like theatre than a gig - I do think there', a way of presenting this material which allows a little more blood to flow, but I guess that's not her aim right now.

Saw John Pilger in the toilet queue. He was blaming NATO for her failure to play 50ft Queenie.

i was wondering what other ~famous people~ were in the audience. also wondering what the audience crossover will be with tori amos at the RAH tonight. i was glad she largely ignored her early material - it would have felt very out of place.

hadn't see this video of PJ actually managing to score an arts funding cuts point to david cameron in person.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvDqF9x5J88

PJH: "economic gain seems to be the only goal of worth..."
Marr: "...you'd better go and get your guitar ready"

still the best album of the year, i think.

I can't recall the last socially "important" record that i've enjoyed as much as this. That clip from the Marr show is interesting in illuminating the discord between art and politics; fuckers even rolled the credits while she played.

Went to the show on Monday, after having spent the last week writing 5000+ words about her, fearing I might be a bit burnt out on LES - but it really was stunning. Like Dorian says, it did occasionally feel a little like a recital or something, though the band was great, and I loved the brass. I actually preferred it when she dropped the autoharp/guitar and ~performed~ a little more. Could have done with being *more* theatrical, imo: there was something uncannily creepy about those songs when she slowly sashayed out of the shadows at the back of the stage, wearing that headdress like she was halfway through transforming from a crow. Appropriately Halloweeny. Was struck by how much stronger I find the White Chalk/LES material than anything she's done before.

Look forward to reading the 5000 words. Who's it for?

Uncut - out beginning of December, still only £4.70!

Paying money for journalism? Not sure it will catch on.

man shame on andrew marr there!, that would have been so much more direct and worthwhile coming from PJH. letting it slip with a default 'difficult choices' blurb is terrible. you forget how generally awful a human being david cameron is until you see him just plainly functioning. sorry/derail

I've since watched the Marr clip a few more times and all i can say is: Occupy London, Threadneedle and/or Fleet Streets.

Context: 1987

I re-aquainted my high school principal during my second year of college where he tried to justify the nascent elimination of funding for district-wide busing versus (an extracurricular program of) football. His argument centered on the value of "team" -- arts funding had already long since been eliminated, but somehow, the "superiority" of this "group" dynamism usurped the potential of the entirety of the remaining populus.

A small percentage define the law of the whole. Assholes two decades fore and assholes du jour are redefining the context of the conversation and people are in great danger of losing themselves. Let England Shake, indeed; and also, Occupy.

i'm really behind on my pj listening. so, this album is pretty awesome! next up: white chalk.

I like that record even better.

this is still the record of the year, by some distance.

better than low's c'mon, malkmus' mirror traffic and vile's smoke ring for my halo? i don't think so. it's solid but it is not even the one of the best pj harvey album by any stretch. there is also the new kate bush which seems to be very good.

i'm fairly sure it is better than all three of those

i ended up putting it at #2 behind beyoncé in my guardian/bbc ballots but really those two and katy b are neck-and-neck, impossible to separate them.

This is my least played favorite album of the year (it's somewhere in the back end of my top ten or fifteen).

and, yeah, I also prefer Beyonce and Katy B's.

This is very easily my favorite album of the year, though I guess I haven't heard all that much.

my best of year too

second after katy b

better than low's c'mon, malkmus' mirror traffic and vile's smoke ring for my halo? i don't think so.

yeah, it's better than c'mon. and trust me, it pains me to say that, since (a) i'm a huge low fan and (b) up to this point, i've been fairly indifferent toward PJH. i really need to go back, in light of this album, and listen to the rest of her discography.

FWIW, i'm not a big malkmus solo fan, and i haven't listened to much of vile's disc (i do like what i've heard). BTW, i this 2011 has been a fantastic year. i've loved discs from, for instance, dirty-beaches, katy b, demdike stare, andy stott, lykke li, peaking lights, EMA, and many others. but let england shake is, to me, in a class by itself. obv., YMMV, but it reminds me of the vibe and power of the queen is dead, and that's high praise.

malkmus solo
he has had a new band for a while, the jicks, and that new album is definitely as good as the best pavement albums. i have always liked pavement at the time but i didn't love them, this new release, i love. but if you don't know pjh, you should definitely check out dry (still my fave), white chalk and to bring you my love. but tbh there is no bad pjh album.

what a beautiful album

yeah it's amazing

just listening to it finally for the first time today; fantastic

i almost hate to do this but....

"these these these are the words...."

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/81/1203271076_1.jpg

"....the words that maketh murder"

haha! that is only funny because of the post above it. otherwise, so rong.

!!!!!

ok straight up I've done nothing else for the past couple of hours but read this thread & listen to "The Glorious Land" and "The Words that Maketh Murder" over and over again. Former is so good it almost makes me cry.

yeah i probably shouldn't have slept on this but i've never been into her stuff all that much. what a fantastic album; i am going to run out and buy it STAT.

oh and now i'm just discovering that white chalk is amazing what the fuck why did i sleep on these until now?

h8 my life sometimes

dude you must have missed the window where I was super-obsessed with this album, because I would have TOTALLY made sure you knew how amazing and awesome and otherworldly it is

wow, these albums are great! this totally sucks.

^ xkcd

lol

it's so good! i remember reading reviews at the time and they were so ambivalent--like, how could you possibly be ambivalent about this?

i don't even find it "hard to listen to" or anything--it's really beautiful.

The land returns to how it has always been.
Thyme carried on the wind.
Jagged mountains, jutting out,
Cracked like teeth in a rotten mouth.
On Battleship Hill I hear the wind,
Say "Cruel nature has won again."

What an album this is. Still is. Will be.

I live and die through England
Through England
It leaves a sadness
Remedies never were within my reach
I cannot go on as I am
Withered vine reaching from the country
That I love
England
You leave a taste
A bitter one
I have searched for your springs
But people, they stagnate with time
Like water, like air
To you, England, I cling
Undaunted, never failing love for you
England

Let's 'ave a ramble shall we? I am in this place a lot of the time. Not living in England anymore. Wouldn't want to any more, to be fair. The love frequently failing (for) you, England. Even more so now that 'England' does no longer represent the country or the land to me, having in my/its absence mutated into England as an abstract. England as an elegy for a sense of time and place I can't forget; a nuisance, a nagging distant memory that keeps tugging at you like a wasted beggar in the pub way past bedtime and salvation. You can't shake it when all you want to do is shake it off. Yesteryear regret and polaroid memories. The dinghy adrift at Porthcurno, the way river Calder forced the roads around it into odd shapes. Crawling your way to the George and Dragon. The tiny elves beneath the bough at Hardcastle Crags. All well and good. I cannot go on as I am: I cannot 'be' in that past and wouldn't want to, it annoys me frequently to have all this sneaking up on me when it's not convenient (it never is).

This masterpiece not so much amplifies it as discreetly summons the ghouls of that past, to have them quietly tiptoe around and cloud my head. I admire how much LES can un-bury and bring back to life. You learn to live with it after a while. It is a thing to admire.

Her most consistent and best record other than is this desire

In The Dark Places - what a track. And all in three minutes.