The title track opens the album with the audio font to set the album off. Twanging dissonant guitars, swishing drums that never take charge except to guide the listener to tap slightly and dueling vocals. A playful marimba-like riff plays over the top of this track which is one of the more upbeat numbers – more like a country shuffle! “The Last Living Rose” is about as pure rock as the album gets with a defined electric acoustic guitar and strong vocals. This song, like most of the album feels purposely run down and chugging. There’s something of a breakdown going on throughout the album where everything feels intentionally clunky and muddy. It reminds me stylistic of Uh-Huh-Her but with a lot more cohesion.

“The Glorious Land” is a real treat with a completely out of time battle horn sounding over echoing guitars and a soft but fast drum beat. One of the key new sounds for this album is having a male vocal run alongside PJ’s two differently pitched vocal tracks and here’s the first sample of it and it works perfectly. This is possibly my favourite track from the album and it builds up to a great call/response finale. The echoing guitars and muddy brass riffs continue with “The Words That Maketh Murder” which has a maddening swirling quality to it. It also, just like the title track, has a sinister comedic evil to it because the male vocals underpinning the track makes me think of very old Hollywood musicals where everyone dances with happy smiles and hats on. Imagining that while they sing about words that maketh murder sits deliciously on my brain!

“All and Everyone” is the first real slow track on the album with organs filling out the reverbs. Nowhere else is the whole clunky beautiful breakdown element of the album more exposed and on show than here in the chorus’. “On Battleship Hill” see’s PJ’s higher vocal register used to excellent effect as she soars “cruel nature has won again”. The whole cowboy western vision is heightened here as the almost spoken deep male vocal compliments Harvey to perfection and light piano tinkles away to the beat in simple but beautiful interludes. Here, like a lot of the tracks, you can tell Harvey is really giving it some welly but you don’t get the whole effect because the entire album bleeds across the speakers.

“England” is the abstract track on the album almost sounding Bulgarian at the start as a background lament gives a middle eastern feel to it. The rest of the track is acoustic guitar led with lots of abstract uses of string instruments filling the corners. “In The Dark Places” floats towards the rockier end of the spectrum with the most direct track on the album with a anthemic bridge. I also like how the chorus is much more sparse than the verses.

“Bitter Branches” is the third in the trilogy of fast tempo tracks on the album. PJ snarls and shouts every two lines in what for some reason is a song that makes me think of T-Rex. It doesn’t sound like them at all! I’ll just leave that out there. “Hanging in the Wire” is ethereal with simple piano chords leading the way over whispery vocals and hissy percussion. It’s like we’ve battled through the cities of England to the open countryside and quiet spots of the country.
Simple yet disarmingly beautiful.

“Written On the Forehead” is the hippy track of the bunch. The whole track is an ambient echo of guitars and uplifting vocal samples while a heavily processed Harvey sounds like all her vocal tracks clash over each other which makes her sound not of this earth. “The Colour of the Earth” is the closing track, which appears to use the male vocal as the lead vocal! It’s almost like an Irish pub ditty you’d sing after ten pints but it fits the album perfectly.

“Let England Shake” has a sound all of its own. A throw back to yesteryear in terms of style, production, intent and emotion – it’s a perfectly pitched tonic to all the nitpickers that sit on every note. This is an album that is more about the overall tone and feeling than the precision perfect clinical music you can have these days. Roll on the next PJ Harvey sound!

“Within A Month” has completely discordant guitar stumming to a drum loop while John talks through a megaphone effected microphone about all kinds of wonderful things. Gradually more guitar riffs and loops flood in the left speaker, while the monologue spews out the right. It’s really interesting for me as its the first time I’ve heard John’s voice at all and coupled with his lazy swinging guitars and rolling drums it makes for a taut production.

“False Fire” is the second b-side is equally as frought as thrasing guitar with added organ bashes in and out as John takes a kitsch view on a country song! It reminds me very much of early PJ songs “Me-Jane” and “M-Bike” in tone, structure and song style. It’s a rip roaring fun track.

While PJ’s influence is there, she cannot be heard vocally and John taking the forefront is quite unique and while it does project a completely different spin on everything, and his vocals aren’t as strong as PJ’s, everything else is channelling the same vein and that’s something grand indeed.

02) Tori Amos (^)

03) Vienna Teng (^)

04) Sarah Slean (v)

05) Brendan Perry (v)

06) Dead Can Dance (NE)

07) OverClocked Remix (v)

08) PJ Harvey (RE)

09) Akira Yamaoka (v)

10) Hiroki Kikuta (RE)

01) OverClocked Remix (NE)

02) Utada (NE)

03) Tori Amos (^)

04) Vienna Teng (v)

05) Akira Yamaoka (v)

06) PJ Harvey & John Parish (NE)

07) Sarah Slean (<>)

08) Brendan Perry (v)

09) Hiroki Kikuta (v)

10) Yasunori Mitsuda (RE)

Single “Black Hearted Love” opens with a 90′s PJ song with wailing guitars and a final minute that is to die for as the instruments gradually build and build to a downplayed finale. It’s both catchy and almost anti-single like however its possibly the most commercial song on the album. The guitar riff is ear piercingly exquisite.

“Sixteen Fifteen Fourteen” is much more representative of the album to come with its banjo’esque lead instrument sounding purposefully detuned and therefore like a deranged clown on a mission to kill. Add to that PJ counting backwards and screaming “Erica’s Coming” like a frenzied banshee and you have a cracking track. Think “Shame” but unhinged.

“Leaving California” harks back to White Chalk with Harvey’s high pitched strained vocals and minimalistic approach. It reminds me a bit of “Ballad of the Soldiers Wife” with its chug along waltz percussion. Perfectly abandoned and utterly unique. In stark contrast “The Chair” is a two and half minute frenzy. Free flow drum rolls and churning guitars are at the forefront while Harvey lets rip in the middle makes this song a controlled edgy piece of genius. “April” is a slow ballad with plenty of organs and heart breaking vocal talent. As if drawing out every last tear from a tissue when ringing it, this song will take you down in flames.

“A Man A Woman Walked By / The Crow Knows Where All The Children Go” is a fantastic song. The chorus chanting “I want his fucking ass” is an experience to behold and is made all the more enjoyable by PJ’s “angry country farmer man” accent. The music also goes off on its own and ends up with some quirky and ingenious studio trickery by fading in and out various instruments. I can see this being some fans favourite and being on repeat for quite a while.

“The Soldier” is a brother to Leaving California with its production and overall sound but this is more together. The echoing piano and the quiet instruments in the background add a real atmosphere to the vocals and sets up this very sad song.

On any PJ album there is one song that falls under the title “freak out”. “Pig Will Not” is that song. Three minutes of screaming PJ? Check! Manic guitars? Check! This will have fans in raptures in a way that PJ hasn’t done for a while. Screaming “I Will Not” at all angles from the speakers has never been so fun, and the last segment is interesting where the song sounds like you’re listening to the song from outside the studio door but the piano is next to you.

“Passionless, Pointless” is sublime track with its keyboards and smooth bass. It’s not laid back but there’s an disorganised heaven hiding behind the harsh exterior. A potential single perhaps? “Cracks in the Canvas” closes the album with a short lullaby story that is like spoken prayer /poem over angelic backing vocals and broken guitar.

PJ Harvey and John Parish have simply done it again. Raucous, rocky, random and angelic all wound into a sound scape of two artists who refuse to flex from they believe in. This is 2009′s first essential dip into the world of the weird and wonderful. Enjoy and bask whilst shounting “I Will Not”…