Polly Jean Harvey, or PJ Harvey as she is known by the music-buying public, is not one to sit still. Almost every album she releases is vastly different from the previous one.
After the polished pop of 2000’s Stories of the City, Stories of the Sea came the stripped-back, bluesy assault of 2004’s U Huh Her.
Next came 2007’s hauntingly intimate, piano-driven White Chalk and then 2009’s collaboration album, A Woman a Man Walked by, with longtime partner in crime John Parish.
So when PJ Harvey announced her new album Let England Shake (Universal) by appearing on British television on Andrew Marr’s Sunday-morning politics show in a feathered headdress, playing the autoharp, while Gordon Brown looked on, it was clear we were in for another side of PJ Harvey altogether.
‘My biggest fear would be to replicate something I’ve done before,” she told Marr.
Dominated by guitars
Yes, Let England Shake is a political album for sure; a quick glance at the lyrics will confirm that. And musically it is unlike anything we have seen from Harvey’s 10-album career so far.
The sound is dominated by guitars laced with echo and electric piano.Slick percussive work and some inspired brass flesh out the songs, aided by samples that appear to be used more for contrast with the rest of the music, such as the trumpet wake-up call that repeatedly sounds during The Glorious Land.
From the opening title track, it’s clear that Harvey is addressing England directly through this album. ‘The West’s asleep/ Let England shake/ weighted down with silent dead/ I fear our blood won’t rise again,” she sings.
Death and war are the dominant themes across the 12 tracks that make up Let England Shake, with three songs appearing to make reference to the 1915 Gallipoli campaign and others that seem to be commenting on the death and destruction of World War I.
Flies swarming everyone
The album highlight is The Words that Maketh Murder, in which Harvey gruesomely describes a battlefield after a war.
‘Death lingering, stunk/ Flies swarming everyone/ Over the whole summit peak/ Flesh quivering in the heat/ This was something else again/ I fear it cannot be explained/ The words that make, the words that make murder,” she sings.
The song draws to a close with the repeated refrain, ‘What if I take my problem to the United Nations?” a cynical comment on the world’s ability to prevent and deal with conflict.
The shimmering Joy Division-esque stylings of The Glorious Land and the grandiose feel of All and Everyone make them stand-out tracks, but to be honest there is not a dud track on this album.
PJ Harvey is at the top of her game and Let England Shake is arguably her best album yet.