Album Review: Let England Shake, PJ Harvey

The albums of Polly Jean Harvey’s are all radically different. Her last effort, 2007’s White Chalk, was probably her most radical yet, the songs were a poetic exploration of her relationship to her home county of Dorset, and she explored the highest registers of her vocal whilst using the piano for the first time. It was haunting, quietly gothic and quite disturbing. It comes as no surprise that Let England Shake was conceived around the same time as White Chalk, yet the sound is remarkably different, though the exploration of her home country is woven throughout both works. The primary focus of Let England Shake, though, is the subject of war.

The title of Let England Shake calls to mind the title of Paul Weller’s recent Wake Up the Nation, yet while Weller’s album reeked of a bitter old man making jibes about Facebook and the Queen, the strength of Harvey’s writing is that she avoids any such polemical writing. Instead, she reflects on the subject of War herself, and invites the listener to join her which provides the basis for a truly resonant listen. The album is not a take on current wars, but of all wars, recalling scenes from as far back as Constantinople, and she’s spoke in depth about the research she undertook about current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Though I’d argue that its main focus seems to be on the First World War, creating an album which no matter in which era you listen to it, it will no doubt yield all sorts of current connotations.

One main focus of War art is the effect of War on nature, and the destruction it causes the land. On The Glorious Land, the song is introduced by the call of a bugle, followed by Harvey asking in an almost mythical rasp ‘How is our glorious country ploughed? Not by iron ploughs/our land is ploughed by tanks and feet/feet marching,’ then later on Bitter Branches, one of the more conventional rock songs on the album, she shouts about the cruelty that nature is capable of ‘Twisting under/soldier’s feet/standing in lines/in the damp earth underneath.’ These verbal echoes are all over the album, creating a really harmonious collection of songs which are all the more interesting when listened to as a whole, showing PJ Harvey really understands the concept of an album. Through this example she considers both man’s destruction of nature, and also the effect of nature upon man in time of war. She never passes judgement on whether war is bad or good, she simply presents a heartbreaking picture of how war effects more than just man.

At the heart of the album is Harvey’s relationship with England, and how she possesses a deep bond to her homeland, even if she does not always feel at one with the country. On the heartbreaking song England she sings ‘I am a withered vine/reaching from the country that I love/England, you leave a taste/a bitter one.’ Again, the imagery of the vine recalls the lines from Bitter Branches, as does the lingual connection of the taste England leaves. She is therefore linking her relationship with England to how the nation treats its soldiers, mirroring how war causes you to reflect upon your nation just as Harvey is doing through the album. It seems apparent that Harvey is using the subject of War as a way of cathartically drawing analogies to her own tension with her homeland, as she explored previously on White Chalk.

Behind all this poetry is some beautifully heartbreaking music. Throughout the album there is a distorted reggae feel. Written on the Forehead, for example, has this swirling, William Orbit-esque dreamy guitar, almost as if she’s heading off to heaven, and on the title track there’s some really macabre percussion, the sadistic subject matter of the song is juxtaposed with this awfully light sound. Through this summery feel you are reminded of the exotic locations in which war often takes place, you can feel the sticky heat as the soldier’s did.  Also, through the diverse music she employs, you remember that war is not just something confined to your own nation, but a global phenomenon which affects everyone in eerily similar ways.

This album then is not just universal in terms of its subject and music, but through placing the album against war of all ages, it’s almost an album that’s just as much part of the present, as it is the past, and surely the future. It’s a majestic work of art which blooms with each listen and is her most haunting album yet. It’s as sad as All Quiet on the Western Front, as devastating as The Thin Red Line and as beautifully rich as the best war poetry. In Let England Shake PJ Harvey has created the definitive War album.