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

i think so. i'm liking it quite a bit so far.

I cannot believe this is possible.

actually both title and cover of new one remind me of some hasil adkins record or something.

Is This Desire: not flat-out awful, yet not involving enough that I ever miss having it around.

Lots of people seem to think that To Bring You My Love is the apex of her career (SPIN, Jim DeRogatis, Greg Kot). But Is This Desire?, you're right, doesn't have a whole lot of supporters (though I've never understood why: is it because it's her most "electronic" album?).

Anyway, this one...It didn't make much of an impression the first two times I listened it, but on the third, it clicked. I'm really digging it now.

"The Pocket Knife"'s my favorite track at this moment: "I don't wanna cause a fuss / I just wanna make my own fuck-ups." "The Letter" is surprisingly dance-able (sort of). I had it playing on my computer while I was getting dressed this morning, and I noticed myself really moving to it without even realizing it.

"Seagulls" isn't listed as an actual track on her site, but it was an individual download on the page I found the album on. It's really unnecessary--just a little over a minute's worth of seagulls squawking. Which kind of reminds me of those stupid Sounds of Nature tapes my mom used to put on when she'd get stressed out.

I like just about everything else on Uh Huh Her quite a bit. Even this minute-and-half-long instrumental thing called "The End" is great (mostly just because it vaguely reminds me of Michael Nyman).

Is This Desire? was a fitfully successful blend of her romantic angst with Trickyian sonics, and is definitely her ugliest and most inaccessible album, which turned a lot of people off. Some of the songs seem almost incomplete and underdeveloped in how short and stark they were, but conceptually, it was her strongest and most coherent work. Probably. It's a toss up between ItD and RoM. I loved how almost evrey song narrated a doomed tale of pitiful female protagonist - and they all had great names. I wish that duet from Angels with Dirty Faces was included as a bonus track, even though it mar the concept. It's also her most classicist, Victorian record, re: the songwriting, so I can understand how some might think it's just humdrum self-indulgent performance art. But I think it's mysterious and beautiul, and the apex of her storytelling skills with how much she can convey through saying so little (revisit "The Wind," "Catherine," "A Perfect Day Elise" - and the sublime "Angelyne").

I anticipate "Uh Huh Her" being a return to form, and I much prefer this cover to her clutching a Gucci bag wearing sunglasses. At night.

Dry is head and shoulders above her other albums to me, then Rid of Me and the 4-Track Demos, and then the last three.

Also, Pitchfork agrees with my view, so of course I am correct

eh, but she sings them nicely though.

As usual I have to remind myself that it's not the fault of Petridish, who I suppose can't help being stupid, but the idiots who pay him money to excrete his shit in a broadsheet newspaper.

I'm not that big a PJ Harvey fan really, I can't stand the songs when she goes mental.. but her melodic songs are great. The Letter's really grown on me.. I didn't like it much at first, but the guitars in that are cool.

The thing that puzzled me last night was how both the blokes and the girls were obsessed with what she was wearing (a yellow dress and pink stillettos by the way.. photos here. You don't get that when you have blokes performing.. even if they were wearing cool boots.

I'm thinking that this'll be where the glamour-kitten image of Stories... and the dirty blues intensity of Dance Hall At Louse Point meet.

Man, I had the biggest crush on Alexis Petridis when I was 18 or so. ...my how times change.

yep.