There are many Polly Jean Harveys, all shedding skins, one by one. While an introspective album using her poems as songwriting templates was never going to be a sonic battering ram as so much of her previous work, there are still good things to be unearthed. This is her tenth studio album and is produced along with John Parish and Flood.
‘ A Noiseless Noise’ is compelling, a kind of gothic skiffle, and ‘Seem An I ‘ is rather pretty, an airy, almost medieval ballad. ‘A Child’s Question, August’ is a simple, effective melody, and yet churns with an unsettling, malevolent undercurrent.
The use of field recordings, skeletal percussion, Harvey’s jagged guitar and piano creates an exercise in minimalism, nagging away like undisclosed pain and the hidden secrets of childhood demons. ‘The Nether-edge’ best encapsulates this elusive quality.
Elsewhere though, Harvey’s voice is strained, as in the messy ‘Prayer At The Gate’. Equally unfinished- seeming is the dirge that is ‘Autumn Term’. It feels like Harvey at her hectoring worst, like when she’s didactic opaque and po-faced. And she can be.
.There’s nothing wrong with serious intensity, but humour and lightness of touch, when deployed properly, is of equal value, too. Methinks the lady hath, “but wherefore I know not, lost her mirth” to paraphrase that William Shakespeare. Now there was a poet who knew how and when to mix it up.
It’s not dreadful, not at all. But neither does it feel like classic Polly Harvey. Still, there are glimpses of light now and then, and that’s fine for now. I just increasingly miss her more devilish, raucous side.
Out now via Partisan
Hit The North 