PJ HARVEY - UH HUH HER

Somewhere in early 2001, PJ Harvey swooped into my CD collection, like some damned musical harpy on a mission. She sunk her claws into my eardrums hard, flew my hapless ass to the mountains, and has kept me there as a prisoner ever since. Her latest release, Uh Huh Her, proves to be yet another shackle pinning me to the wall, binding me under the six-string crunch and brooding howl of my captor.
Unlike its immediate predecessor (Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea), Uh Huh Her flips the ethereal upside-down and takes a nose-dive into the dark, murky swamps of earlier works, like Is This Desire? and Rid Of Me. Miss Polly Jean Harvey\'s voice serves as a 41-minute storm over these 13 tracks. At moments, it sprays like wind-shattered sugar glass. Her teakettle screech grinds like a twister, in and out of guitar-riffed fields of grain, uprooting high-hat trees and collapsing kick-drum farmhouses. And, as fast as it came, Harvey\'s long snake moan rolls away like distant thunder over a piano key landscape. Sound-wise, this is a perfectly accomplished album. And, from the acidic, standoffish bellow of \"Who The Fuck?\" to the gentle, graveside whisper of \"Slow Drug\", it’s lyrically strong as well.
Even though some of the moods and approaches to sound definitely bring previous albums to mind, that’s not to say there’s nothing original about this LP. The folky tinge of \"Pocket Knife\" and the beautifully short instrumental \"End\" more than prove that. From start to finish, this entire musical experience is the next evolution in a style that we expect from PJ Harvey, and a whole lot more.