In, 'Let England Shake,' Polly Jean Harvey has recorded her defining album. It's a great record full of memorable music and unforgettable lyricism. What separates it from all other releases, however, is the bitter sweet bitter embracing extent of its subject matter - ostensibly war, specifically the First World War. The album delivers a unique, and uniquely compelling, female perspective on those most generous of killing fields; an uplifting and extraordinary balance between raging invective, staring disbelief, communal gentleness in brutality and matter of factness reportage -
On Battleship Hill's caved in trenches,
a hateful feeling still lingers,
even now, 80 years later.
Cruel nature.
Cruel, cruel nature.
Above all, a helplessness but equally resounding hopefulness explodes from these grooves. It is PJ's magnum opus.
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