Let England Shake

In contrast to PJ Harvey's last album, White Chalk, the songs on her latest disc, Let England Shake, are tuneful and melodic. It's only when you pay attention to the lyrics that you realize she's still singing about death.

As the title suggests, the album is something of a song cycle about Harvey's homeland, England. But there's not too much talk about rolling green hills or shepherd's pie--she' concerned with England's history of warfare. The time period doesn't seem to matter. "Battleship Hill" refers to an incident during World War I (perhaps Gallipoli, since a book on that subject is mentioned in the liner notes). But I have the feeling that any kind of warfare has gotten under her skin.

This is the England that Harvey writes and sings about, from "The Last Living Rose": "Take me back to England/& the gray, damp filthiness of ages/Fog rolling down behind the mountains/& on the graveyards and dead sea-captains."

Or in "The Glorious Land:" "And what is the glorious food of our land?/It's fruit is deformed children/What is the glorious fruit of our land?/The fruit is orphaned children."

I think my favorite song on the record is "The Words that Maketh Murder," which is foot-tapper, but when you read the lyrics it gives one pause: "I have seen and done things I want to forget/soldiers fell like lumps of meat/blown and shot out beyond belief/arms and legs were in the trees."

Let England Shake is a terrific record, and I listened to it several times. Someone who doesn't speak English might have a completely different reaction to it, thinking that it's just another above-average pop album. Harvey's voice is at its best, crystal clear and soaring at times, but the message is unrelentingly bleak. With all the wars that the U.K. and the U.S. are involved in right now, it's also strikingly relevant.