Ok, let’s get this clear now ‑Polly Jean harvey ROCKS! Her early albums (as the 3‑piece group PJ Harvey) is all distorted blues tracks played like punk on acid, while her last album moved (slightly) more towrd the mainstream, but this, and the later ‘Is this Desire?’ are her masterpieces of suicidal misery, and she sounds like a beyond the edge manic-depressive insomniac randomly dialing every emergency number in the ‘phone book disguised as a different woman each time.
Darkness falls like an enveloping shroud from the first of those deep, bestial bass chords on the first, title track; an electrified grid for the voice of the damned; a distorted, compressed growling-moan that shuddering the speaker drivers and gives any amp a serious workout. Howling guitars blend through the next two tracks, complimenting the now banshee vocals and shuddering organ before a ‘nice’, misery laden accoustic track gives your system’s low range (if not your mind) a little respite before the real gems.
Tracks six and seven -‘Long Snake Moan’ and ‘Down By The Water’ are the ultimate, the listener needing afterward to be eased by the comaparative delicacy, and resignation of the final tracks. Vocals that rocket through the octaves and plunge into the deeps of purgatory and beaten into submission by an organ breathing its last; sequancers and synths about to short-circuit, and a range of strings; electric or otherwise, that are clearly being strained beyond breaking point. And all the while the menace of the musical picture hammers home the near desperation of the lyrics, which are not, in themselves, especially aggressive, yet no less painful to listen to. Polly does not paint musical landscapes with her work. It has a very human, intimate quality that looks more at people as individuals. The album tells a story that moves from bitterness, to anger, to despair and finally resignation, and has the power to hold, control and dominate the listener’s emotions to the twisted, humane sadness of the tales.
Genius.