Album Reviews

No one has ever claimed PJ Harvey creates music made for easy, or even pleasant listening. Much of it is dark and painful, but even at its weakest, Harvey's music is provocative and worthwhile.

Her latest won U.K.s prestigious Mercury Prize for "Best Album of the Year," and if you're willing to take the time to dig into it, you will be rewarded and yes, even entertained by this fully realized concept album.

No one has ever claimed PJ Harvey creates music made for easy, or even pleasant listening. Much of it is dark and painful, but even at its weakest, Harvey's music is provocative and worthwhile.

Her latest won U.K.s prestigious Mercury Prize for "Best Album of the Year," and if you're willing to take the time to dig into it, you will be rewarded and yes, even entertained by this fully realized concept album.

While Let England Shake will be of more direct interest to residents of the former British Empire, its implications will surely resonate with Americans today because war is the centerpiece.

Harvey opens with a direct statement "The West's asleep....I fear our  blood won't rise again/England's dancing days are over." The album isn't a "wake up call"  to arms. It's just a statement of fact. Nor is it critical of England. Harvey professes her enduring love for the country. 

Descriptions of war seen from dirt level in many conflicts produce memorable images. The songs are made all the more powerful because Harvey describes these scenes unadorned by jejune judgemental commentary. "Written On the Forehead" brings the war in Iraq home in ways no standard issue "protest" song might.

The combination of skillful poetry, lithe melodic invention and scene-setting, deceptively simple instrumental backings, produced to fulfill a sublime artistic vision add up to a transcendent listening experience. The production mirrors perfectly the "loamy," earthy  lyrics. The album was recorded over a two month period in a Dorset church.

It's best to listen and read along with the lyrics first play. You'll quickly discover that the lyric sheet is incomplete. Key lines are sung but not written. You'll have to listen for yourself to hear what's been omitted. As for why, like any good puzzle, a system isn't immediately apparent but I assume there is one.

The sonics are as rich, full and dark as the earthbound perspective from which Harvey writes and sings. Her performances are deceptively understated (which is why you have to at least listen "in" and probably read along with the lyrics to understand them) but powerful.

For an American listening to this English-centric album, the parallels to our national state of mind and economy are striking. It's a terrible cliché, and I'm sorry use one to describe an inventive, original and perfectly realized work of art, but Let England Shake  is a thought provoking, transcendent album that is sure to bring into focus for you the unsettled and disturbing world in which we currently find ourselves.

As with all true art, once you absorb this record it will change you and you will enjoy yourself in the listening process. It's art and entertainment  and clearly worthy of the prestigious prize it won. Highly recommended.