P.J. Harvey
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
(Island)
Listening to this CD for the first time, I had to check a couple times
to make sure that I was really listening to PJ Harvey. The voice sounded different, especially
singing some straightforward rock songs. It was definitely PJ Harvey though, in her new guise,
coming across as natural in it as she was in any previous dress. Stories From the City,
Stories From the Sea is the accessible PJ Harvey, and welcome to her.
If the ambient sounds on Is This Desire? befitted an album with a question for a title, the crisp sounds on Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea are definitive for an album of answers, answers to nothing except to affirm that Harvey has something to declare. So while last time she asked if this was desire, this time she has a song title that directly states "This Is Love" while the song oozes desire from beginning to end. Even guest vocalist Thom Yorke (Radiohead), he of the tortured vocal, sounds sure of himself here. Ambivalence and ambience can be fascinating; confidence can be exhilarating --Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea is nothing less. The rocking songs mention the city, the slower songs mention the world, while each one propelled by a rhythm that is sometimes slow but always going places, usually with a churning guitar sound I believe to be of her own making. Harvey's extraordinary vocals take command throughout. In "Kamikaze" she sings "build an army to come and find me" and it sounds like a taunt. "The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore" ends with a sympathetic wail. "Beautiful Feeling" is exactly that.
Harvey is unafraid of risks, and we are the beneficiaries of the chances she takes. The lyric "We'll float/Take life as it comes" would sound trite in almost anyone else's song. Yet when these lines are sung in the final song the moment is incandescent; Harvey is convincing because she is sure of herself. Nothing and no one can touch her.
An artist in complete control is a beautiful thing.
Rating: 9
Is This Desire?
(Island)
Is this Desire? is P.J. Harvey at
her most quiet and moody, and the good news is she remains fascinating even when she's toning it
down. P.J. has such control of her voice that even when she whispers the vocal she puts it
across. Tricky's influence is prevalent here, with spare sounds both strange and inviting
popping up on the soundscape. Many of the songs create a hypnotic feel. Even when P.J.s being
abrasive, as she is with a crunching bass sound in "My Beautiful Leah", the song is
over in less than two minutes, then the trance resumes. Over her last three studio albums, P.J. Harvey has lessened the levity and increased the
drama,
and at times the new record dances perilously close to Tori Amos Land. But P.J. is
saved from her pretensions by the force of her talent. Like Van Morrison, when she's at her best
she's
working hard enough to justify her journey into the mystic. She's a vocalist and
talent of the
highest order, so she can do what she wants.
Rating: 9
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