Let England Shake

Let England Shake likely won't please those who still complain that PJ Harvey is no longer the near-feral, Captain Beefheart-influenced young woman of Dry and Rid of Me, but that's their loss: this powerful record is among the most emotionally gripping things Harvey has ever done, doing as much with themes of war and nationalism as her early records did with sexual aggression and gender identity. Uncharacteristically, Harvey wrote both the lyrics and the vocal melodies before even touching an instrument, and then wrote many of the tunes on autoharp and zither. The resulting trad-folk feel of the melodies underpins the full-band arrangements (featuring regular collaborators John Parish and Mick Harvey), but it's unnecessarily reductive to call Let England Shake a folk-rock album: the overall vibe is much more Nick Cave than Nick Drake. Lyrically, Harvey examines such big themes on a personal level, inhabiting a different character within each song, from a shell-shocked ex-soldier reliving battlefield torments in "The Words That Maketh Murder" to a woman waiting for her lover's return in the title track. Similarly, several songs include evocative samples, from the loop of Niney the Observer's "Blood and Fire" that centers "Written on the Forehead" and the vintage bugle fanfare that punctuates the bitter "The Glorious Land," that help place them in specific physical and emotional situations. It may be less directly personal than some of Harvey's work, but Let England Shake is her most direct and impassioned album in years.