The Garden, a PJ Harvey Discussion Site

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PJ Harvey
Let England Shake
Island/Universal

Its Booty? Its Fist? In Fear?

No, PJ means England to Shake in Shame, or at least Tremble with Recognition, on her new album. With its references to Gallipoli and the Middle East, Harvey’s ninth album could be subtitled War, pace U2. After a career spent scouring the inner workings of soul, loin and psyche, she turns her focus to the outer, where death stalks the land and the stanzas. War is eternal, and so is England. And they’re both … tired. But instead of blasting away at the obscenities of “arms and legs … in the trees” with the furious rock ’n’ roll the title might have indicated, Harvey almost seems to … beguile. This may be her most subversive move yet.

Harvey loves the tragic, conflicted innocent figure of the soldier, and writing itself, too much to make Let England Shake a political indictment. Don’t get me wrong: “soldiers fell like lumps of meat,” “its fruit is deformed children” – there’s no doubting which side she’s on, and in the clappy Words That Maketh Murder, she, John Parish and Mick Harvey turn an immortal Eddie Cochran line into the closest thing to formal protest.

The echoing, fairy singsong and plinking of the title track keep the damning lyrics from bluntness, but the theme has been set: there have been other soldiers in PJ Harvey songs, but not like this, nor have there been such settings. The Anzac Trench, Bolton’s Ridge, Battleship Hill, belly dancers round burning oil, war vs. nature, and Olde Englande. In the boot-stamp of The Last Living Rose, she paints a conflicted, ironic portrait of her native land. It’s not a celebration, rather a confession of imprisonment.

Which captures the material, but not the artist. Because she is a shape-shifter, musically and vocally, Harvey has been both Primal and Ethereal. Here, within chamber pop of autoharp, keyboards and sketched guitar, she’s mainly the latter, in recognition that the subject matter will handle the former. Still, the voicings are ravishing: the poised rawness of England; the almost gauzy, flirty Written on the Forehead, with its Arab swirl; the speedy, silvery East Euro sound of The Glorious Land, with her playful “Ah! Ameree-ka! Ah! Enger-land!” All and Everyone is the sobering shadow-sister to In The Dark Places, with its expiatory ride-out. Likewise the giddy “let it burn!” refrain in Written on the Forehead.

On first listen, one expected – even hoped – for at least one flame-throwing riff, but obviousness is not a Harvey trait. For all the grim imagery, there’s an essential elusiveness to the album, an ancient folk fatalism at its core. There always seems to be a crooked nursery rhyme or fable skulking in Harvey’s music, which fits the topic: Like war, they’re best left as a story or game for children. When either takes on literal, real form – guns blazing, or Hansel being eaten – it’s lethal.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Podworthy: Written on the Forehead

ML

Pitchfork Review
Score: 8.8 [rated Best New Music]

"The West's asleep," PJ Harvey declares on the first line of her new album, Let England Shake, before spending the next 40 minutes aiming to shame, frighten, and agitate it into action. When Polly Jean Harvey burst into the public consciousness in the early 90s, her gravely voice, outsized personality, and often disturbing lyrics gave the alt-rock world a crucial shot of excitement. That early work is still among the most raw and real guitar music to emerge from the past few decades, so no surprise, it's a version of PJ Harvey a lot of people still miss. But if you've paid attention to her in the years since, the one thing you can expect is that she won't repeat herself.

On Let England Shake, Harvey is not often upfront or forceful; her lyrics, though, are as disturbing as ever. Here, she paints vivid portraits of war, and her sharp focus on the up-close, hand-to-hand devastation of World War I-- depicting "soldiers falling like lumps of meat"-- provides a fitting setting for today's battlegrounds. From the Zombies to the Pogues, artists have often gravitated to the confused, massive loss of life of the Great War. If it doesn't resonate as much in America as it does in Europe-- and it doesn't-- that's more our fortune than our shame.

The Great War remains a rich and resonant subject for art because it briefly caused the world to step back, aghast and afraid to look at what it had done. The collective trauma of World War I did indeed shake England, specifically, out of the end of its imperialistic Victorian stupor. The rest of the world gasped as well: WWI hastened the Russian Revolution, coaxed the U.S. into isolationism and a flirtation with pacifism, and set the tone for a shunned Germany to embrace the Third Reich. Culturally, the result was modernism, dadaism, and surrealism continuing to overtake the giddiness of la belle époque; geopolitically, it redrew European borders, creating roughly a dozen new nations; diplomatically, the League of Nations, a precursor to the United Nations, was meant to prevent war, at least on this scale, from ever happening again.

On "The Words That Maketh Murder", Harvey blackly and comically shakes her head at those post-WWI diplomatic hopes. After spinning tales lamenting what a soldier has seen and done, she and her cohorts-- frequent collaborators John Parish and Mick Harvey-- break into the jaunty closing refrain from "Summertime Blues": "What if I take my problems to the United Nations?" It's a hilariously depressing coda; her song's character has experienced the unimaginable and is looking to an international peacekeeping body for help.

Throughout the record, Harvey sings in her higher register, as she often did on the underrated White Chalk, granting her some detachment from her surroundings. Instead of owning the spotlight outright, as she did in the 90s, she floats above and beside it; it's a neat trick that forces listeners to crawl closer to her words, allowing them to slowly come into focus. The textural and tonal qualities of her voice are made malleable, a scalpel wielded with precision rather than a sword. On the whole, she carries distant echoes of her peers and successors-- Joanna Newsom, Björk, Kate Bush-- while remaining clearly and identifiably herself.

Harvey does this musically too, incorporating traces of English folk, early rock, reverbed dream-pop, and disparate familiar melodies (as well as "Summertime Blues," she appropriates Niney the Observer's apocalyptic "Blood and Fire" on the one directly Iraq-related song here, "Written on the Forehead", plus a close approximation of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" that originally played a larger role on the record) as a foundation. With autoharp, zither, saxophone, and other new instruments added to her palette, Harvey crucially crafts sturdy, earwormy melodies. If you didn't listen to the words, the record would scan as beautiful, even docile or tame. Harvey forces you to locate the real world behind a pleasantly hazy foreground.

Even considering all of the horror on display, this is her most straightforward and easy to embrace album in a decade. Along with "The Words That Maketh Murder", the bouncing title track, the radio rock of "The Last Living Rose", and "Written on the Forehead" would all make excellent singles. They'll all get a chance, so to speak: Harvey commissioned war photographer Seamus Murphy to craft videos for each of the record's dozen tracks. (Three of them have already been released: "Let England Shake", "The Words That Maketh Murder", and "The Last Living Rose".) As much of a piece as this record is, its songs also work in their own contexts, and despite using a limited number of players and instruments, Harvey and co. locate a wide range of approaches to their central subject; alongside the singles, those include the rousing folk-rock of "Bitter Branches", the delicate "Hanging in the Wire", and the acoustic "England".

Even a cursory glance at the album-- its title, song titles, lyrics-- marks this as a very English record. Its pastoralism befits Harvey's West Country background and recording setting (as well as the fields in Europe in which most of WWI was fought, and where most of the dead are now laid to rest). But it's less about the experience of one nation with war, so much as one people. That those people are English is Harvey soaking her music in her own surroundings and experiences. Swap out the place names with others, though, and the message remains the same. It's universal and it's necessary-- and it's powerfully and clearly stated. That it's also a joy to hear is perhaps the most confounding juxtaposition of all, turning a record you'll respect into one you'll also love.

— Scott Plagenhoef, February 15, 2011

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/151 ... and-shake/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

wow 8.8 on Pitchfork!!!

Onion AV Club has got their review up, along with an interview:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/pj-harvey,51836/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Excellent reviews on amazon.co.uk.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews ... Descending" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here's my favourite so far (and yes....yes it is). Short 'n' Sweet from FB

New PJ Harvey out today. It's nuts!

- Lucky McKee

Don't know if it's been posted but haven't seen it yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF8deoEscGA

From the description

Pros:
Colorful melodies
Strong, new, and rich content

Cons:
Doesn't command attention

This reviewer gives it a 7 out of 10.

http://www.metacritic.com/music/let-eng ... ic-reviews" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is a really good review too:

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wir ... d=12940754" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I want a refund.

Trebz wrote:I want a refund.

We know. Sorry, we don't do refunds here.

Excellent Reivew over at Adrian Denning's site. A 9.5/10 rating. I'm still seething with anger over the shocking ratings of "Is This Desire" - just as deserving of a 9.5 and "Rid Of Me" - also high up there. And, how in the hell did he find Stories (a great record still) more enjoyable than "To Bring You My Love"?


http://www.adriandenning.co.uk/pjharvey.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Let England Shake 9½ ( 2011 )
Let England Shake / The Last Living Rose / The Glorious Land / The Words That Maketh Murder / All and Everyone / On Battleship Hill / England / In the Dark Places / Bitter Branches / Hanging in the Wire / Written on the Forehead / The Colour of the Earth

Polly teams up again with Mick Harvey and John Parish, continues to sing in that high 'White Chalk' register, pens an album about England and War and continues, essentially, to be bloody awkward. The music is far away and on first glance, very samey across the twelve tracks. Her voice is often encased in echo as are the guitar parts. No flowing or biting guitar rock here - rather strumms and patterns and feels. Additional instrumentation (mellotron, horns, xylophone, etc) bring out different textures. Initially this doesn't seem a happy album but then again, penning lyrics about war and death and sounding like a ghost.... was it going to be upbeat? That doesn't actually make it a dour listen, though. Repeated listens reveal the melodies to be subtle and free and the band either under-rehearsed (if being exceptionally cruel) or rather more positively, wonderfully organic. It gets better with every single listen and i'm on about my 16th listen, there's always more to discover, new hidden bonus features within the songs themselves, if you like. In short, 'Let England Shake' is absolutely stunning.

Polly never wants to repeat herself and if you look back at the albums she's previously released, she very rarely does. So, whilst superficially 'Let England Shake' may seem a cousin to 'White Chalk', lyrically and musically it does something quite different. The caribbean steel drums of the title track, the saxophone of 'The Last Living Rose', a first for PJ Harvey as she's never played the instrument on record before. She's started playing the harp and numerous other instruments, always looking for something to add to her repitoire. 'The Glorious Land' features hip-shaking rhythms and a vocal style reminiscent of Liz Fraser of the Cocteau Twins and/or Siouxsie of Banshees fame. Her vocals are light and airy for most of the songs on the album, perhaps almost divorcing herself from the lyrical content - this isn't an album about her, after all. The words stand, her voice often sounds incredibly beautiful and occasionally joining up vocally with the male members of her band works too - the almost hynmal 'The Colour Of The Earth', for instance.

'England' features a snatch of an Iraqi love song married to Polly's own love song, of sorts. 'Bitter Branches' is the rockiest song here, offering welcome musical contrast. 'Written On The Forehead' meanwhile expertly mixes in a reggae song which kind of becomes interwoven with Polly's song til they are the same song. This is an album about England in one sense then but in another it contains many worldwide elements. Oh, those steel drums that appear during 'Let England Shake'? Some may recall PJ previewing this track live before Gordon Brown on a British politics show. Then, it was a sampled track from a song 'Istanbul (Not Constantinople)' which she played atop and wove into her own song. That song is still here, albeit represented musically and transported to steel drums. Worldwide, inspired or short on musical inspiration? Well, actually, just truly inspired. She listened to an awful lot of music, took advice from the late, great Captain Beefheart of who she was a personal friend (he liked 'Uh Huh Her', top man!) and came out with 'Let England Shake', possibly her finest set to date.

Another nice, yet brief one from the New Zealand Herald:


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment ... d=10707754" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Rating: 5/5

The Queen of Scream, PJ Harvey, reconnects with her folk-blues roots on her eighth album, Let England Shake.

Aptly recorded in a 19th-century church in Dorset, the English singer traverses the trenches of Gallipoli and the Afghan frontline, laying out a sombre lesson in war.

The tracks melt perfectly into one another, weaving together a musical story of carnage and doom. It's a concept record only Harvey could pull off with such feeling and intensity. Brilliant.

Polly_Jean_Cave wrote: The caribbean steel drums of the title track

I guess that's what xylophones are called in Carribea.

Teclo25 wrote:

Polly_Jean_Cave wrote: The caribbean steel drums of the title track

I guess that's what xylophones are called in Carribea.

haha.