PJ Harvey’s words weigh heavily with England’s violent, war-torn past and present on ‘Let England Shake’ – like a vague history lesson with plenty of emotion and strummed guitars.
The Gallipoli campaign’s bloody climax becomes musical poetry within ‘All and Everyone’: ‘Death hung in the smoke and clung to 400 acres of useless beachfront. A bank of red earth, dripping down death now, and now, and now.’ The musician handles the dark and historical material with a mounting, guitar strewn tension and hallowed intonation. Her vocals are often effected throughout the record – or closely backed – creating a more ghostly, or dramatic, narrative. This is best worked in the title track, where the vocal lines are left suspended, hanging in mid-air, an old-time piano riff does the two-step with the swinging rhythm.
The songs and production are meticulously entwined; a host of interesting flourishes make for a fully formed and forever changing record. Marching trumpets, calling staccato brass, reggae samples and chanting male accompaniment assist in creating the imagery, to bring the singer’s stories, or obvious disillusionment, to the front page.
There are moments that are stripped to the singer’s basic emotions. ‘The Last Living Rose’ will testify. The exposed opening would once have been the building block for an entire album. But this isn’t her kicking out in ‘Oh Huh Her’ mode, and it’s a lot lighter on its feet than the piano heavy ‘White Chalk’. So while these songs are still undoubtedly her own, it this feels like a more communal effort in arrangement terms – a tragic and dark soundtrack with rhythmic tempos and imaginative twists and turns.
And as the soft beat and yearning voice gently sway in the excellent ‘In The Dark Places’, or the guitars roll on a tide of saddened realities in ‘The Glorious Land’, it seems Harvey is easing on the harder edges of her music – for now at least – to convey her message. However you look at it, there is little doubt she has made one of the albums of her career. Simultaneously stunning and tragic. DF
