A good producer can do wonders for an artist, especially an
\nalready exceptionally good artist. For PJ Harvey, it took
\nsuper-producer Flood to make an album that fully utilized her
\ntalents. Other producers gave it a nice shot.
\nIn Utero<\/i> producer Steve Albini showcased PJ Harvey raw
\nshrills with
\nRid Of Me<\/i>, but Flood gave PJ Harvey a true sense of
\ndirection with
\nTo Bring You My Love<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Indie purists may have bitched that
\nTo Bring You My Love<\/i> was overproduced, but only on the song
\n“Send His Love To Me” does Harvey allow the luxury of a sweeping
\norchestra arrangement. Besides, in PJ Harvey’s case, her incredible
\nvocal range merits a good production. Flood gives the percussion,
\nguitars and violins on the album a resonance that’s rich but never
\noverpowers the main quality of the album: Harvey’s voice.<\/p>\n
Harvey’s voice unfairly lumps her with the other top female
\nartists of today. Harvey, along with Tori Amos, Liz Phair and Bjork
\nare grouped together because of their genre busting albums, but
\neach has a distinct voice that defies catagorization. Harvey is
\nprobably the hardest to categorize in the bunch. On the title
\ntrack, Harvey growls with the intensity of blues great Howlin’
\nWolf. In “Teclo” and “Send His Love To Me”, Harvey has a sound so
\nmature, they would fit nicely on a classic Brahms recording.<\/p>\n
In 40 short minutes, Harvey covers an entire spectrum of music.
\nWhile she wades in the “deep south waters” of delta blues, she also
\nadds her own 90s rock sense into the mix. In “Long Snake Moan”,
\nHarvey yells above a wall of amped up guitars “It’s my voodoo
\nworking”. In “Down By The Water,” a rattlesnake percussion meances
\nwhile Harvey hisses “Little fish, big fish swimming in the
\nwater\/come back here man give me my daughter”. Is that line a
\ntestament of motherly rage or a horrifying account of abortion? Who
\nthe hell knows. All I know is that we’re far from Alanis
\nMorrissette country here, folks.<\/p>\n
The watery images and sounds of
\nTo Bring You My Love<\/i> coincide with Harvey’s wrestling with
\nreligon. In the murky title track, Harvey shuns redemption and
\nboasts, “I’ve laid with the devil\/cursed god above\/forsaken
\nheaven\/to bring you my love”. Yet in “Send His Love To Me”, Harvey
\nachingly bellows, “I’m begging Jesus please\/send his love to me”.
\nThat line alone has more commitment and yearning for spirituality
\nthan my entire Christian upbringing.<\/p>\n
I’m not one to boast about any decade of music being superior to
\nthe last. Each decade produces about an equal amount of shit and
\nclassics. But with
\nTo Bring You My Love<\/i>, I have to admit I’m pretty happy to be
\nmaturing in the 90s.
\nTo Bring You My Love<\/i> contains all of PJ Harvey’s quirkiness
\nof her earlier albums, but it also has a fertileness that contains
\nsediments of blues, gospel, white noise, old school rock and even a
\nlittle opera thrown in for good measure.<\/p>\n
When unrestrained, PJ Harvey can go too far.
\nDance Hall At Louse Point<\/i>, last year’s side project with
\nJohn Parish, was a good example. Parish, who handled the percussion
\nfor most of the songs on
\nTo Bring You My Love<\/i>, and Harvey made a somewhat decent
\nalbum. It still fell far short of the range that PJ Harvey is
\ncapable of though. I can only hope that she pairs up with Flood for
\none more album. In the meantime,
\nTo Bring You My Love<\/i> puts PJ Harvey in with the most
\nimporant artists of today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":24491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5801],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-35695","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-pj-harvey","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35695"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35695"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}