PJ Harvey
Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea

THE REVIEW

We had gotten a bit tired of Polly Jean when "To Bring You My Love" was released; the first single "Down by the Water" with its electronics, the distorted bass coming out of the sequencer had ruined the perfection of "Rid of Me." A step back. End of harmony.

With "Stories from the City" PJ Harvey returns to that simple, harsh, gritty song form that characterized her first two albums.

"Big Exit," the opening song, is programmatic for the entire album: bass/guitar/drums and her voice fragile yet firm, melodic yet angry. A claustrophobic part (the city) of the "verse" frees itself high in the "chorus" (the sea?) while Mick Harvey's (Bad Seeds) bass in magnificent contrast digs into the ground or moves like the waves; "Baby, Baby, ain't it true, I'm immortal when I am with you". "Good Fortune" sounds like a song by Liz Phair, American singer/songwriter.

The episode with Thom Yorke "This Mess We're In" is decidedly the weak point of the entire album, with Yorke whinier than ever; a pointless duet, based on mere and empty repetition, one of the other's words.
"A Place Called Home": "One day / I know / We'll find / A place of hope / Just hold on to me..." with a determined pace closes by repeating endlessly "One day there will be a place for us" while in the background the guitar plays lightly, carefree. This is attitude.
In "One Line" you can hear echoes of reverberated guitars à la Joy Division majestic and relentless in their simplicity. "This is Love" is equally majestic and played on the contrast of the two parts, as in "Big Exit".
The album closes with "We Float" slow, soft, resigned that then opens into the liberating verse "But now... weeeee float, take life as it comes" with PJ's voice rising almost to breaking, choked and beautiful, 8 minutes and 18 seconds of masterpiece.

The end of the album. A hidden song follows, marked on the CD but without a number and heard after a couple of minutes of silence, "This Wicked Tongue," for which the lyrics are missing in the booklet: "This wicked tongue says... you are not really living".

A masterpiece album, as few come out.