"Uh Huh Her." Thoughts on the new PJ Harvey?

so, the michael medved of music criticism, then.

I like Rid of Me about as much as the subsequent three actually. I bought it when I was thirteen (one of my very first albums) and I still find that I like it more each time I play it (which is not a whole lot, admittedly!).

I'm actually quite looking forward to this album and I love the title and the cover more and more all the time.

Uh Huh Her was meant to arrive today... where is it? where? Fucking Royal Mail. Grrr.

On first listening, Uh Huh Her is definitely a step back toward some kind of emotional coherence and direction. Like her earlier stuff, it's understated, with few muddying layers, and seems half-written initially. This is a good thing. Many of these songs, while retaining the raw blues spine of her early 90s work, are wrapped in more Latin flesh. And thankfully, her unique eroticism is back, female but not generic.

At times, she almost sounds like she's flirting with preciousness a la Sinéad O'Connor circa I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, and she gets away with it. At others, she's a dark savant sibling to early Hole Courtney sans the histrionics. In fact, by mostly shedding her own histrionics, and injecting some kind of Patti Smithery (she's done that before, more overtly), her voice has reached its apotheosis (perhaps) without ever succumbing to the dreaded word/concept "mature".

Oh. Another quick observation: the album gets progressively stronger.

Fuck, this is nice. It'll change, I'm sure, but for now, standouts are "The Life and Death of Mr. Badmouth", "Shame", "The Slow Drug", "It's You", "The Desperate Kingdom of Love" and "The Darker Days of Me and Him".

The shorter songs/interludes help stitch it together. It feels like it all belongs. (Even those seagulls.)

Embarrassing as it sounds, I love her (music!) more than ever. This makes me very happy.

I just want to defend Albini's production of Rid Of Me wholeheartedly. I remember when I first heard his production of Wedding Present Seamonsters and it took me years to get used to it despite my respect for both him and the Weddoes. With PJ, though, his production made perfect sense because there was more silence, more breathing room. It's hard to imagine that album having been better without him.

(As for my synopsis, I've quit worrying about embarrassing myself on ILM -- my personality leans toward the ridiculously effusive and enthusiastic, I just can't do hipster reserve, so I no longer even try.)

(Polly Harvey is actually astonishing-looking, like some kind of semi-malevolent nocturnal creature in human form, which makes her sort of compelling.)

WOW!
It looks like it could say Big Black, but are you sure???

Anyone else thinking of Karen O right now?

A few of the new songs, eg "The Life and..." strike me as YYYsesque too.

This really should be the other way around.

It might just be the MP3s I downloaded (which sounds like they might be the vinyl rip), but this is heavier and sludgier (ie the Desert Sessions/QOTSA dude has rubbed off).

Is Civil War Correspondent not one of the most poignant anti-war songs ever ? those lyrics, geez... Rope Bridge Crossing and Heela are amazing as well...intense, over-the-top, but with almost a camp-like sense of enthralling fun bubbling in the background to the drama (esp the part where john parish does back-up vocals on Heela) -->

"
{She ...}
{She was a girl, she got her hair done nice}
{She said "i've given all I got to my healer man}
{He put his hands on me, showed me what I am} "

I like it quite a bit as well, I know Ally made it her album of the year at the time. Actually, there's no PJ Harvey album I hate at all -- they're all pretty great!

Actually, my memory/impression of the reception received by Stories... at the time it was released was very favourable, wasn't it? On some level, it reminded me of the contemporaneous All that I Can't Leave Behind (they were not only released in the same year, but the same month) -- both in its critical reception (a return to guitar rock/form!) and in its large sound, even down to similarly awkward attempts to re-mythologise New York City.

(It's a whole 'nother thread, but has anyone else noticed how many bands/artists were writing explicitly, overtly about NYC in the months leading up to 9/11? I know they always have, but the numbers seem disproportionate, like the collective unconscious had an inkling or something.)

Yeah, how lucky was she to write "Kamikaze" for her New York album ...

Yes, I agree.

(And just to back up my weird assertion above, alongside U2 and PJ Harvey, there were songs by Doves, Richard Ashcroft and Interpol arpound that time all featuring NYC either heavily, thematically, or overtly in the titles.)

Many of the tracks on slsk etc were ripped from vinyl.