PJ Harvey: White Chalk
PJ Harvey: New album treads unfamiliar ground
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Debut album from Southampton lads sounds like a mad night out with an angry Cossack, a lovelorn gypsy and all the mates your girlfriend hates. |  |
Saturday, 22, Sep 2007 01:00
September 23rd, Island.
In a Nutshell…
Britain's original riot grrrl ditches the guitars
Who's It By…
West Country lass Polly Jean Harvey is something of a musical chameleon. From the moment her parents introduced her to blues, jazz and art-rock record when she was a kid it was clear the young PJ was a musician who was not going to fit comfortably into a mould.
Growing up, musical tastes evolved and teenage Polly was likely to be found assimilating bands such as U2 and the Police as well as Soft Cell, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet.
I guess what we're trying to say is that PJ, when she first came to start her own band – way back in 1991 – had a lot of musical experience already under her belt. And from this point she accelerated – her first single Dress was voted single of the week by John Peel.
And early albums Rid of Me and To Bring You My Love were pretty well received in a low-key kind of way. But it was her 2000 effort, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, that marked the lady's acceptance in the mainstream. Songs with Thom Yorke and an amalgamation of her previous rock sounds and gentler influences saw Harvey bag the Mercury Prize for the year.
But since then, Polly's been pretty quite, until now…
What's it all about
PJ Harvey's last real album was released way back in 2001 and earned the artist a Mercury and the top spot on Q's the 100 Greatest Women in Rock Music list.
Now how do you top that, well Harvey signalled her intentions in 2004 with the release of Uh Huh Her – a far more low-key affair in which PJ played nearly all the instruments and produced everything. But the world wasn't ready for the gal to ditch her rock image yet and the record was ignored. However Harvey did state at the time that "when I'm working on a new record, the most important thing is to not repeat myself ... that's always my aim: to try and cover new ground and really to challenge myself – because I'm in this for learning".
This gave fans a pretty big hint that Polly's next outing was probably going to head off in a surprising direction and it has. On White Chalk the lady has cooked up 11 tracks of startling beauty that pretty much just use the voice and a piano to send shivers down the listener's spine.
As an example
"Oh grandmother, I miss you/under the earth, wish I was with you." – Talk to you
"Dear darkness, dear darkness, won't you cover me up?" – Dear darkness
What the others are saying
"Nothing Harvey has done in the past, however, can prepare you for her eighth album, White Chalk, whose cover is as singular as the tunes therein." - Paul Mardles in the Observer.
"With its bones on show and chest wide open, White Chalk may not be the greatest album of all time, it may not be to everyone's tastes, and it may not even be Polly's finest. But let it and it'll haunt you." Sean Adams on Drowned in Sound.
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammy's?
Well little old PJ has already got a Mercury, six Brits and five Grammy nominations so she's probably not really that bothered about another award, her mantelpiece probably couldn't take the strain anyway.
Having said that, White Chalk is a stunningly beautiful album and displays just the sort of bravery and ingenuity that the people who give out music prizes go crazy for.
But the album's not really going to achieve the cross-over success of Stories… so it might get passed over in favour of someone like Feist (who's album the Reminder is also ace – buy it while you're picking up White Chalk).
So is it any good?
On first listen this might leave you cold – that is if you were expecting something like Stories. This is a massive departure from the gritty, thrashing, guitar-driven punk energy of the Mercury-winning record.
Give it a chance and you'll come to realise that White Chalk is every bit as impressive as PJ's earlier record, but in a more grown-up and mature way.
Simple piano melodies dance across the record and allow the girl to show that her voice is really rather delicate and fragile.
And this is something that is counter pointed by the lyrics – beautifully created words which display a vulnerability which was always covered up by all those guitars and banging.
Now, it's easy to feel Harvey's pain as she wails 'nobody's listening, oh god I miss you' on The Piano or laments her dead grandmother on To Talk to You.
In fact there are literally no bum notes her, the whole album flows with the kind of gentle but compelling drive that forces you to pay attention right up to the final delicate notes of The Mountain.
It might not be as showy or radio-friendly as the efforts of people like Bat for Lashes or Kate Nash, but PJ Harvey! has grown up from an superb riot grrrl to become something even better.
8/10
James Cooper