Advertisement

Album reviews Music

>>> Album of the Week: PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey’s ninth album begins and ends inside a car, with the British rocker staring out the window, observing what’s happening on the street. The pace is brisk on opener The Community Of Hope as she whizzes through a poor Washington, DC, neighbourhood slated for redevelopment, past the one sit-down restaurant, a “shit-hole” of a school and the site of a future Walmart.

It’s a deceptively upbeat song that sets up The Hope Six Demolition Project’s main musical dichotomy of bleak observations paired with shuffling drumbeats and jaunty riffs.

In addition to DC, Harvey also travelled to Kosovo and Afghanistan and zooms in on mundane details that tell larger stories of the present or recent past. Whereas 2011’s Let England Shake reflected on a long legacy of war and colonialism, Hope Six feels urgently in the moment. It was recorded in a gallery open to public view, so there is a live, raucous electricity to the arrangements, especially felt in the backing vocals, handclaps and screeching sax.

Harvey sings with unshakeable poise, and her melodies are as sticky as ever – to the point where you can imagine some songs working as barroom singalongs. The musical references to spirituals and swampy blues feel predictable, given the heavy American content, but her infectious energy gives Hope Six a momentum akin to the sensory overload of travel. You are there on the street – or in the car – with her.

The album is about observing, but one of its most affecting moments is the most intimate. On closer Dollar, Dollar, Harvey is back in the car, staring into the pock-marked face of a child beggar in a traffic jam in Afghanistan. In an icily clear voice she describes the encounter over a solemn drumbeat and backing choir that chants the titular refrain. It’s a harrowing, humbling song that looks into the eyes of an enormous problem and describes the distance between two worlds separated by a windowpane.

Top track: The Wheel

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Recently Posted