The Garden, a PJ Harvey Discussion Site

Blackie wrote:"The Orange Monkey" is wonderful.

I have a strong feeling I'm going to prefer this album to Let England Shake, mainly due to her voice. I really like how she's using it on these new songs.

I have to agree, I think her voice is stronger in her upper register and that's a big plus. I expect the live shows will be off the charts. I like the more dense instrumentation though, I feel like there's more variance here. Im really enjoying the songs that are out, I think the orange monkey is my favorite of the three we've heard. Ministry of Defense and A Line In the Sand sound very promising.

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I love that she's used strong and much louder drums/percussion on this record. It's something I've been wanting her to do for a long while.

10 out of 10 review:

"The Ministry of Defence also sees Harvey use the narrative tool she used on "This Mess We're In" from SFTCSFTS but instead of Thom Yorke’s floating falsetto we are now treated to Linton Kwesi Johnson who delivers lines in a spoken word fashion as Harvey repeats them slightly behind making for an interesting dialogue between two people who are saying the same words but a full of alternate meanings. There is a truly magical moment where producers Flood and John Parish let the music dip out and we are left with Johnson speaking in one ear, Harvey in the other whilst the music and breath-as-percussion sit in the middle somehow creating the effect of three separate elements playing apart from each other before they come crashing back in making the song whole again."

"What starts with just a slash-and-burn Swans-like riff slowly builds as each passing second an element is added making it almost unbearable in places (which is a good thing). We get bass clarinet, saxophone, keyboards, and percussion played with restraint and pin-point accuracy by Polly’s band <...> Considering all the instrumentation on the song you would assume it could sound cluttered but the opposite is true as each one just adds that extra twist anchoring the song and letting it build brick by brick."

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Thanks for keeping us posted with all the reviews, the great majority which are positive. It seems like Ministry of Defense is talked about quite a bit by reviewers.

pretty sure the lyric is, " the circle is broken, she said", not " the circle is broken, she's dead" lol.

I believe we will be hearing more( all perhaps?) the songs on monday.

Yeah thanks for all the reviews. It's great to see the majority of them so positive.

Yes, indeed - thanks to all for posting reviews. Some really great ones. Looking forward to Friday very much! Loving what I am hearing so far.

Friday cannot come quickly enough. Haven't been this excited for an album in a long time.

Yes! More thanks for keeping this thread constantly updated and making it fun to check it daily !

Review 4/4

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertain ... olumn.html

God, I want to hear this album so bad. The local record shop even said they would probably have it by Wednesday to sell to me, but I STILL am impatient. Such an exciting time- waiting to hear a new Polly record.

HowardF wrote:God, I want to hear this album so bad. The local record shop even said they would probably have it by Wednesday to sell to me, but I STILL am impatient. Such an exciting time- waiting to hear a new Polly record.

Every new post on here makes me think it's leaked! lol

New review in the Sunday Times (can't read it all):
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/cul ... 685278.ece