release date: Feb. 11, 2011
format: digital
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,22]
producer: Flood, Mick Harvey, John Parish, PJ Harvey
label: Island Records - nationality: England, UK
Tracklist: 1. "Let England Shake" - 2. "The Last Living Rose" - 3. "The Glorious Land" - 4. "The Words That Maketh Murder" - 5. "All and Everyone" - 6. "On Battleship Hill" - 7. "England" - 8. "In the Dark Places" - 9. "Bitter Branches" - 10. "Hanging in the Wire" - 11. "Written on the Forehead" - 12. "The Colour of the Earth"
8th studio album by PJ Harvey released on Island Records (Vagrant in the US) and produced by Flood [Mark Ellis], Mick Harvey, John Parish, and PJ Harvey. The album comes 3½ years after White Chalk (Sep. 2007), and stylistically it doesn't deviate much from that. The 2007 album dealt much about the same old England like this one. Here, the songs are more orchestrated but still with bold and quiet folk and chamber pop.
In the UK the album was met as her finest album to date. Harvey was nominated the Mercury Prize Award in 2011, like she had been on three other occasions before - only, this time she won it, and she is so far the first artist to receive that prize more than just once, as she also won in 2001 for the album Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea (2000). Harvey has received a number of other prizes for the album, and it's (perhaps) her best-selling album worldwide, peaking at number #8 on the UK albums chart list and making it to top 10 in various other countries.
Looking at her most recent studio releases it appears that she feels comfortable playing with Mick Harvey and perhaps especially with John Parrish, with whom she released the second collaboration album A Woman a Man Walked By in 2009, and that she has found a more mature role playing more folk-based music with lyrical roots in ancient British literature. Particular in England, critics and people in general, I guess, are happy to have this female exponent of modern art that bonds with the glorious past. And I know from reviews that the album was received in mostly positive terms abroad as well.
In spite of all the acclaim, I just don't find it that rewarding, and perhaps because my musical fascination is very much dependent on the musical output - regardless lyrical strengths. This is sincere and mellow music but it doesn't really touch me. Writing about World War I, and dealing with conflicts as a conceptual element is simply not enough. I find the music repetitious and on a halt without musical progression or originality. Concerning album highlights, I find that a difficult subject 'cause from my perspective, the album is without obvious highs. The whole album is like one long take. The storytelling is initiated, prolonged, extended and finished without much fuss. Yes, there are obvious epic elements, but this is not a novel. I'm sorry, Polly Jean, and you're still fabulous. A bit undeservedly, the album is enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5, Rolling Stone 3 / 5 stars ]
