Let England Shake.

The new PJ Harvey album, 'Let England Shake', is streaming at the moment on NPR (who have had some great first listen albums recently). It's an angry, politicised album aimed at England but with one doomy eye gazing at the rest of the world too. It's all PJ but there's hints of Joanna Newsome here and Kate Bush there. Though to be fair I might just be causally relating Bush and Harvey there because of PJ's 'England' and Kate's 'Oh England My Lionheart', but there's a definite atmospheric feel about this record that recalls some of Kate Bush's finer work.

The music itself sounds as good as anything I've heard from Polly Harvey in ages, the brass works really well, there's a couple of samples dotted about, the whole thing hangs together extremely well. It's full of autoharp and it's definitely pervaded (as said) by an atmosphere, a sense of old Englishness which fits the theme of the record well.

I'm loathe to say more about it until I've listened to it properly, but a preliminary listen makes me think this is going to be one of those records that gets raved about in the press. It does sound excellent on a first run through. We shall see.

You can listen to the record streaming now on NPR. Also Harvey is doing a video for every track on the album. So far there's two

The Words That Maketh Murder


The Last Living Rose