PJ Harvey "Let England Shake" - 2011 - Universal / Island
Pj Pj is always, how can you not love her? Although the unconditional love, to every record release, is strained by something more sophisticated and intimate (see records like "White Chalk"). From "To Bring You My Love" the 1995 album that sounds like already detached itself from its first two, and which rightly won him worldwide fame, our Polly Jean has done everything step by step, to change his character and his music.
does indeed see her, fully dressed, as a caste damina Victorian (always cover of "White Chalk"), one that plowed first five years the boxes around the world wearing overalls or fuchsia pink miniskirts and thigh-high boots from perfect rockeuse.
speaking voice is undeniable Pj that, during these years, did everything a
job to train her voice, so you can dare to voice things that rock would not normally ask (for example in the song "Let England Shake" the His vocal timbre is very similar to that of Bjork, or at least that is my impression).
Musically speaking, his research has led increasingly to other instruments than the canon electric guitar, piano kind or that kind of zither with which he performed very often, that the notes describe the disk as "Auto Arp", a small portable harp walking.
The result of all this? De gustibus!, I definitely prefer the "Pj of chitarrone" (his first three records to "To Bring You My Love") while not forgetting the rarefied atmosphere of "Is This Desire? "or the great airy ballads of" Stories From The City, Stories from the Sea. "
On this record, however, a turn towards folk rock, also as a civil protest song, in fact I fully agree with a review (and sometimes good copy is an art), read as usual disks department store in France Via Torino ( who knows what?), The gist of which was that PJ Harvey punk does not give the clubs more with the guitars, but with the lyrics.
Council to give it a look in the CD booklet and you will find poems in praise to the awakening of social conscience (in "Let England Shake") or who wonder how he came to "Our Glorious country, England (in " The Glorious Land", Dylan was almost than Pj) or references to nature stepmother "Cruel nature has won again" ("On Battleship hill" is Giacomo Leopardi more Pj) or very evocative metaphorical images (in "Bitter Branches", the arms of wives of soldiers who greet their husbands at the start, seem to tree branches that are open to the world).
But the music? It's still a record! The operation works! "Let England Shake", as I said before, is a hard rock / folk punk is a punk album, (the first type of Violent Femmes, (that of "Gone Daddy Gone", so to speak) definitely thanks to the contribution of collaborators / friends the likes of Flood (a monument to him) or the exposure guitarist John Parish or "Bad Seed Mick Harvey.
Curiosities: fanfare in the dissonance in "The Gloroius land" is perfect, or a sample from "Bed's Too Big Without You" by The Police.
peaks, for me so far are as follows: "The glorious land", "On battleship hill" and "Written on the forehead."
Finally a disc is not immediate, but in the long run, as the still waters, broken bridges.
Rating: 7.
And as always it was a pleasure. CIAOOO Mauro.
