PJ Harvey - White Chalk

these hills will rot your bones

With or without some spectral lyrics, I was going to get a ghosty feel from White Chalk anyway. This is the first time I've visited this page. 10 seconds worth of seeing the number of stars in previous reviews already told me what I've quietly suspected for the past year or so. This is probably PJ's most controversial album thus far. Right off the bat, there's barely any guitar. If you're expecting/needing some of PJ's gritty post-punk-blues types of songs, just keep on moving along because this isn't that.

While I don't rank this as highly as 2 of my very favorite albums of the past year, Carla Bozulich/Evangelista's Hello, Voyager and Dandelions On Fire by Simone Massaron and Carla Bozulich (available on this site but for some reason it won't let me insert a product link for this cd), I can't give it 3 stars. At 33 minutes it's more of an EP than an album. An EP of melancholic beauty where you don't feel like you're listening to a cd so much as you're hearing a solitary, haunted piano drifting down from your attic. Not that it's only piano and vocals, but piano is the dominant instrument.

At the very least I would have thought every PJ fan probably loves the title track. How does someone not? It and a couple other tunes here (I'll let you find them on your own if you buy the cd) would be devastating, I'd think, were they played at or after the funeral of a friend. Most of the times I've listened to this album I find myself just sitting there 5 minutes after it ended. Somehow sad but not with a heavy heart. I do wish there had been a lyric sheet included (or at least posted on her site) because I haven't picked up on everything she is saying, but it's okay. Sonically, this music is somewhere I need to go. September 16, 2008

Cloistered Originality

After the shaky-at-best Uh Huh Her (in my opinion, her weakest album), I was immediately struck by how cohesive the vision for this record (one of her best) is. This is unlike anything she's ever done, which both hinders it and sets it free. The vocals are barely-there high, the piano is tattered and the artwork is striking. I think it's interesting that years after her forays into glam-goth, she makes what is truly the most gothic album she's ever attempted. I've never heard anything quite like it, but I was also surprised that no one had made this record before. I consider it an instant classic, an essential part of her catalogue, and yet I wish it wasn't so painfully short. It feels like a brilliant transitional EP. The only reason I hesitate to give it 5 stars is that it is so cloistered. It's a quiet, very strange, depressing record that only lends itself to play when the season allows. My guess is that in the winter, I will consider this one of my favorite albums. It is destined to be criminally underrated. September 11, 2008

White Chalk Nightmare

Having been a PJ fan for 15 years - starting with Rid of Me, I'm dismayed at this white disaster of artistry. To say that PJ doesn't cater to the mainstream is understood. To even say that she may care or not care whether she has any fans may also be accurate. Who knows what she was thinking when she made this. Maybe artistically she "hit the wall" and was going for a new direction. Whatever SHE may have been thinking, I bet the producers and company honchos must have thought this was going to be a disaster. Can you imagine going to a concert and listening to cuts from this dirge? I've been to funerals and heard more upbeat, soul satisfying music! Well, 15 years of great music is quite a statement. Maybe it's time for retirement PJ! I want to remember you as you were, singing Meet Ze Monsta!! July 30, 2008

When I hear the delicate melodies

and her soft little girly voice, I say HUH? Ive never heard her before, but her previous cover art conveys a hardened, street wise woman

Her songs and mannerisms here rip those preconceptions to sheds.
"I freed myself from my family, ive freed myself from work-ive freed myself - ive freed myself-and am now Im alone..."
One of the best lines in the song. being from the piece
SILENCE, also one of the best songs on the album:
What gets me is the anguished, haunting verses that convey going out into empty darkness.....
which end the piece...

It awakens something hidden inside, a memory, that I cant quite bring to the surface as a child, something which I cannot explain


The song is worth the price of the album alone July 20, 2008

Moody, haunting, great...

If you like moody, haunting music with a bit of a gothic flair, then this should appeal. Her voice, piano work and arrangements all create a unified mood and deliver unique sounds and thoughts. I very much like all but two of the tracks, and those two are OK, just not as much to my liking. Enjoy... July 9, 2008

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