A Woman A Man Walked By

In 1996, Dance Hall At Louse Point was considered a wildly experimental, almost avant-garde side project, so much so that it was credited to John Parish and Polly Jean Harvey so that folks wouldn't mistake it for a "normal" PJ Harvey album. Funny how expectations shift with time: coming after 2007's left-field piano-ballad experiment White Chalk, Parish and Harvey's second songwriting collaboration feels like a return to form. In fact, "Black Hearted Love" and the Baudelaire-inspired "Pig Will Not" are fierce, guitar-driven rockers that sound more like Dry-era PJ Harvey than anything the mercurial singer-songwriter has done this decade. Harvey's previous albums have tended to explore one particular sound and feel, but A Woman A Man Walked By is perhaps her most musically and emotionally varied work so far, swinging easily from the clattering, chaotic "The Chair" (the lament of a bereaved mother) to the delicate, breathy folk-rock of "The Soldier." Even the playfully sneering title track, on which Harvey takes evident delight in swearing energetically over a bluesy grind, transforms mid-song, "Layla"-like, into a careening, soaring slide-guitar instrumental. The variety does her good: this is Harvey's most vibrant, interesting album since Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea.