PJ Harvey - Let England Shake [Island/Vagrant]

8.6

On the opening lines of the dramatic epic track off PJ Harvey’s latest work Let England Shake entitled “All and Everyone”: “Death was everywhere/In the air/And in the sounds”. Those couple of few lines sums up the theme of Let England Shake; death, terror, war, and so forth. This unsettling theme sets up England as a tremendous, emotional ride that transcends anything that PJ Harvey has ever put out.

Polly Jean has always been one coming straight out of left-field in the alternative rock ballpark and that quality sets her apart so distinctively. Instead of going for another piano-driven effort like previous LP White Chalk, PJ goes into what she calls a “grand departure from anything before”. That is always a great reassurance when delving into a prominent artist’s new work like PJ. Changes include her unique change of vocal style focusing on a more “narrator” style, also the heavy use of the autoharp, which she just started playing, the autoharp creates a beautiful, progressive feeling towards the songs it is used in like the highlight track “The Words that Maketh Murder”.

With all these interesting changes in PJ’s musicianship, I couldn’t wait to delve into Let England Shake. I wasn’t disappointed with was PJ came up with. Kicking things off with a very playful, almost sinister aesthetic to the sound; immediately, it’s apparent that PJ’s vocals are something everyone will have to get used to, it’s a bit of an acquired taste. After multiple listens PJ’s distinctive voice will sink in and you’ll be thoroughly appreciative of it. Along with PJ’s unique vocals, assorted horns and orchestrations swell up and inflate the hallow space that is present when they aren’t playing.

Let England Shake is dark and haunting, but it doesn’t exactly sound like that. It sounds very hallow and earthy. The middle chunk of the album has the most daunting images surrounding them with lines like “I’ve seen soldiers fall like lumps of meat…Arms and legs were in the trees,” from the track “The Words that Maketh Murder”. Though these images are unsettling, there are realistic since she mirrors soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. The album really lightens up in sound, but not in theme. The waltzy “Hanging In the Wire” has a beautiful piano line that works on top of the dismissive, yet important rhythm sections.

With the occasional bad spot that Let England Shake hits like over-exuberant vocals on “England” are almost eye cringing, but aren’t all bad since it create a very rich alt-folk track. With those few blemishes put aside, Let England Shake is a tremendous album that deserves all the praise it is getting even how overzealous it may be.

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The Strokes - Angles [RCA/Rough Trade]

6.8

Is This It is easily one of the best albums of the past ten years. It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since that landmark record hit the shelves. The Strokes return after a long break from the musical world after the slightly unsuccessful release of third LP First Impressions of Earth. Now Angles is here with promises to “return to the basics” from bassist Nikolai Fraiture, that’s a reassuring thought, but from a first listen of Angles it isn’t entirely true.

That garage, rough-around-the-edges feel that The Strokes established on Is This It is nowhere present in Angles. So I don’t see how this could be a return to the basics; in fact, I find that Angles seems to continue on the path of First Impressions of Earth with more studio experimentation and tweaking around with different vocals effects, especially on bizarre track “You’re So Right”. The album really does sound like it comes from five different people as opposed to being put together by a unit of musicians. Instead, the band worked fractured with singer Julian Casablancas sending the rest of the band vocals completely recorded elsewhere.

This aspect of a “fractured recording process” might be the immediate downfall of the whole album. Looking at musical history, some of the most successful albums ever crafted were created in a short, focused recording session. That’s not always true; some great albums were created with long stretches of time. Who knows exactly the perfect time limit of putting out an album? Whatever The Strokes did on Angles didn’t work. Only two tracks on the album have a wonderful “Strokes” feel to it: “Under Cover of Darkness” and “Machu Picchu”, both guitar heavy, full of nice little hooks, and straight to the point instead of trying to find a purpose like tracks like “Call Me Back” or “Games”.

With touches of new wave all over the album, Angles feels very ‘80s in nature. With a cool, synth-covered track of “Games” presents one of the most “out there” Strokes songs to date. The direction of some of the tracks like “Games” isn’t good; in fact, the vibe of most of the tracks is weird and disjointed. The only “out there” track that is enjoyable is “Two Kinds of Happiness” which has some excellent guitar work with Albert Hammond, Jr. That track and the two before it (“Machu Picchu”, “Under Cover of Darkness”) save Angles from being a complete flop.

The final song, “Life Is Simple In the Moonlight”, mostly sums up the whole entire album in one. Starting with a good promise of bringing a very catchy intro but then builds up into something very unmemorable and reaches a point to where it feels greatly rushed. Unfortunately The Strokes have made a worse album then the ladder, First Impressions. The more delving I did in Angles the more it deteriorated for me and it showed how unmemorable it really is. The Strokes are great musicians that have a knack for create great guitar rock, unfortunately with overused methods of trying to “expand their sound” is unsuccessful and fails, but not to say that the entire album is a failure, there are some great tracks on the LP, but bad ones bog it completely down as unmemorable.

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