P.J. Harvey, Uh Huh Her
Featured Album
All jagged edges and spat-out lyrics
After the relative splendor of Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, PJ Harvey went back to exploring the beauty through dredging through sonic murk that characterized so much of her earlier work. Uh Huh Her is all jagged edges and spat-out lyrics, harkening back to the Rid of Me era in both its sonics and mechanics; Harvey produced the album herself, played most of the instruments on the album, and sought out low-quality equipment on which to perform the songs, some of which sound like sketches committed to record a la 4-Track Demos. But while it's tempting to say that the sometimes-ugly Uh Huh Her was an inevitable reaction to the settled Stories, the themes here remain constant with the ones she's explored over the course of her career; on "The Letter" she uses a pen as an extension of her sexual longing for someone who she wants to "be different" with, while "Who The Fuck?" echoes some of her earliest work, with Harvey telling an impossible-to-shake lover to "get your dirty fingers/ outta my hair" over guitars that sound like popping pistols. This isn't to say that the whole album rifles around the dark side; "You Came Through" is a gentle, airy examination of a friendship on which Harvey's voice quivers as she recalls being saved by an important bond.
