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Rating: "As soon as I was left alone, the devil began to walk within my soul".
With these words, this album opens. Tired, confused, drunk words, incapable of hiding it, accompanied by a crooked march played by a few instruments. The song drags itself wearily, entangling upon itself, losing pieces, extinguishing prematurely, ending up denouncing its own inescapable essence. Remaining, in the background, the broken, labored breath of someone who has listened and has witnessed a two-minute drama unfold before them. An actress who doesn't know how to act, a singer who no longer wants to sing.
In the depths of the heart, bare and bleeding, a true actor without a face: the drama of a love ended. Words to one who is no longer there to accompany her in this difficult life. And, still, letters to the buried grandmother ("If I were lying on the ground, could you hear me?"). The last goodbye of a suicidal ("Goodbye, my dear... If I was rude, forgive my weakness"). Sketches of regret from a glance turned towards the past, to the now distant family ("Mom's at the gate, as she tries to escape... Oh God, I miss you"). In the end, it doesn't make much difference: it all sounds unified in its silently painful nature, suffocated in anguish. It follows "Dear Darkness" and the temptation to say nothing about it is too strong. Leave it in the shadow where it lies, forget it to find it beside us like a ghost that no longer remembers how to scare us. It grows, grows, grows "Grow, grow, grow" and, to maintain the trend, fades away after just a blink of an eye, a tear only imagined, and a black shiver. Still the piano, the instrument upon which the whole album is built. A piano small as the work it performs (a little over half an hour). There is no glimpse of light.
We could continue analyzing the pieces, go on dismantling and ravaging this work. But it would be, indeed, a ravaging. And Pj Harvey doesn't deserve it, she has already suffered enough to give us this black diamond, to extract this sweet and poisonous absinthe. I believe this gift deserves to be received in the most proper and respectful way. It seems there is nothing more to do but let this album speak for itself. Few words, confused, crumpled up, choked by tears never shed. Listen to it.
"I tried to learn your language, but I fell asleep... half naked... unrecognizable to myself".
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
04 When Under Ether (02:26)
The ceiling is moving
Moving in time
Like a conveyor-belt
Above my eyes
When under ether
The mind comes alive
But conscious of nothing
But the will to survive
I lay on the bed
Waist-down undressed
Look up at the ceiling
Feeling happiness
Human kindness
The woman beside me
Is holding my hand
I point at the ceiling
She smiles so kind
Something's inside me
Unborn and unblessed
Disappears in the ether
This world to the next
Disappears in the ether
One world to the next
Human Kindness
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Other reviews
By azzo
When I saw you on that Norwegian television site, at the piano, while singing "The Mountain", I immediately got chills.
I just ask you to pick up the electric guitar and tell the world to go to hell one more time.
By biaspoint
This chalk is not for everyone, although gradually you will realize that listening in small doses will bear fruit, then you will not let it go anymore.
An intimate album, but one that externalizes all its mastery, that mastery somewhat hindered over the years, perhaps by too many guitars, absent or almost in the entire album!
By juanito
PJ sits at the piano, surrenders to the stream of consciousness, and with a new voice, she touches new strings, new instruments, new unexplored angles.
An album from the afterlife.
By The_dull_flame
I have never managed to hold back tears in front of these splendid compositions, which often do not exceed 3 minutes.
She may have changed too much, but this Polly continues to move me.
By luludia
As if a crazed wolf cub were howling with a glass voice within a closed room.
A kind of remarkable interior grammar — precise, sculpted, surgical words.
