Monday 28 March 2011

Album Review: Let England Shake - PJ Harvey


*****
Sneak home and pray you'll never know/The hell where youth and laughter go - Siegfried Sassoon

Let England Shake certainly owes much to the war poets, conjuring as it does horrific tales of young men cast into the hellish nightmares of trench warfare.

However, whereas it would be all too easy for these 12 tracks to descend into cliché, in fact, and against the odds, PJ Harvey has crafted a work that not only sits as a tactful testament to the fallen but is a fitting tableau of humanity's multi-faceted struggle against self-destruction.

Throughout the album, the presence of nature is felt very strongly, the massacre and the killing inked indelibly onto the landscape, whether the stench of death "coming off the mounds of Bolton's Ridge" or the "Jagged mountains, jutting out, cracked like teeth in a rotten mouth."

On Battleship Hill, from which that last line is taken, is perhaps the most interesting track in this regard, not merely lamenting the cruel nature of man but also championing humanity's resolution (or is it begrudging war's futility?); eventually, despite the devastation, "The land returns to how it's always been."

It's also possible to draw parallels, not only with Iraq or even the current conflicts in the rest of the Middle East - "What if I take my problem to the United Nations", stolen from Eddie Cochrane on The Words That Maketh Murder - but with the global population's ongoing battle with Mother nature, whether that be climate change or other natural hazards beyond human influence.

Neither does Let England Shake deny the inherent romanticism of war, especially on All And Everyone, where the lines, "As we advancing/In the sun" ring out against a melodramatic musical backdrop that, to me, evokes images of the final scenes of British sitcom Blackadder Goes Forth.

It's evidence of Harvey's particular genius; not merely pedaling the truism that war is bad, but also empathising with man's plight and never assuming a moral high ground.

Of course, the album's other main theme is the resonance of England's chequered past. Harvey's relationship with her homeland is clearly troubled, at first appearing to romanticise the "battered books" and "fog rolling" on Last Living Rose but in the next breath clearly lamenting its "stinking alleys" and "drunken beatings".

This is revisited on the straightforwardly titled track England, the weight of a nation's failings leaving a 'bitter taste' but like 'roots from a vine', the connection with her homeland, for all its faults, is constant. "To you, England, I cling/Undaunted, never failing, love for you".

It's a tightrope that Harvey walks with Let England Shake but it's too her great credit that the subject matter is handled in such a delicate, ambivalent way as to truly replicate the complexities of war - the line between right and wrong being often blurred in extremis and our loyalties to each other and our country questioned at every turn.

Friday 18 March 2011

He's from Barcelona

I've just finished reading Russell Brand's second book(y wook), a brilliant and, at times, touching insight into his debauched world, but one chapter, entitled 'He's From Barcelona', opens with a passage that particularly tickled my fancy.

I think it might just sum up everything that's so brilliant about him whilst at the same time displaying many of the qualities his detractors so love to seize upon...

It was the biggest media event since Princess Diana died. An event that received as much news coverage as the mysterious death of the most famous woman in the world. When it happened it was blown up like 9/11. It was on the front page of every newspaper, every day, for almost a month. Every television news broadcast opened with the story. Twenty-four hour rolling news channels rolled with the news for twenty-four hours. It was analysed, debated and contested by an entire nation. Even the country's leader, the Prime Minister, was involved when it was discussed in the Houses of Parliament. What was it? A prank phonecall. And who done it? I did.

Tuesday 15 March 2011

Album Review: Hotel Shampoo - Gruff Rhys


****
Gruff Rhys is a busy man. When not fronting Super Furry Animals - nor promoting side project concept albums in tribute to bankrupt 1980's car manufacturers - he's producing short films and an art installation, the latter based on all the shampoo products he's acquired from various hotel rooms over his touring life.

So provides the inspiration for the title and artwork of Gruff's latest solo album, initially intended to be a collection of piano ballads but materialising into something much more diverse, an eclectic mix of influences from Caracus to Camarthen.

Perhaps more importantly though, the Welshman's penchant for delicate melody makes a return to prominence. Nowhere more so than on Honey All Over - a sugar-coated delicacy of a song - matched only by the exquisite Vitamin K and sublime If We Were Words (We Would Rhyme).

There's an understated charm to the album, not brash nor brazen in any way, a soulful companion with whom you feel comfortable and content, yet remaining musically vivid and harbouring a playful joie de vivre that masks its sometimes melancholy lyrics.

At all times Gruff Rhys' personality exudes forth, particularly in wonderful lines such as "tummy full of tumbleweeds" but also in the way he makes use of humour. Take this Guardian piece on how he wrote Sensations In The Dark by way of example.

By the time Space Dust #2's call and answer duet has washed over you - "You upped and left without warning/I had to work in the morning" - and Patterns of Power has imparted its piéce de rèsistance, you simply find yourself marvelling at the fact all this artistry can be traced back to a collection of hotel toilets.

Only in Gruff Rhys' hands would this turn out to make perfect common-sense.


Monday 7 March 2011

Album Review: Computers and Blues - The Streets


****
I must admit I'm a late adopter when it comes to The Streets. Whilst Mike Skinner was making his greatest impact, back at the turn of the century, I was far too enthrall to The Strokes led, NME coined, 'New Rock Revolution' to appreciate him.

Over the following decade however, my respect for his talents has burgeoned to the point where I have finally invested in an album, financially as well as emotionally...

Computers and Blues is an impressive mix of skilled word play and dry observation, but on the face of it, Mike Skinner's earnest philosophising could be seen as bordering on the trite. "If you're going through hell, keep going" he opines unhelpfully at one point, channeling the vocals of Robert Harvey - The Music front man and omnipresent force throughout the album. Nothing to challenge Nietsche there you'd be right to think.

However, for every excruciatingly overwrought 'epiphany' - the likes of which are found again on Roof Of Your Car - there's a moment where Skinner's honest and straightforward touch really does make its mark.

A Blip On A Screen, for example, benefits from a stark and touching simplicity, describing a new father's emotion on first seeing evidence of his unborn child - "I fix and I plan/but this is just mad/I love you/You're only 100 pixels on a scan."

Puzzled By People offers further glimpses of inspiration. "You can't Google the solutions to peoples feelings" seems such an obvious remark to make but belies a hidden insight.

Of course, the appeal of Computers and Blues isn't just the underlying theme of survival in our technologically fraught world, there's the heady mix of tunes that add dynamism to Skinners peons on modern life.

We Can Never Be Friends inevitably lends itself to comparison with Dry Your Eyes and, in fairness, it doesn't fall far short; another heart wrenching tale of love lost and the strength required to accept the harsh realities of such.

At the other end of the spectrum, Trust Me is an urgent, grimy and beat laden affair. It's hard not to fall for Skinner's witty whimsy found in lines such as, "I see Alice in Wonderland/I see malice in Sunderland" which sound anything but the work of an act nearing retirement.

Alas, retirement is inevitably where this album finally rests its focus and, once closer Lock the Locks fades from the speakers, it's all too clear that the UK music scene will be much the lesser for The Streets departure.

Whatever Skinner turns to next, The Streets lasting legacy will undoubtedly be the ability to marry thoughtful word play, witty observation on modern life and mass popular appeal. No mean feat.