http://thequietus.com/articles/20486-fi ... ly-herndon21:00 – PJ Harvey, The Quietus/Eat Your Own Ears
As befits an artist who has immersed herself in the study of war, PJ Harvey makes her live return to these shores in force, brandishing her saxophone, her band bearing military snares and a huge marching bass drum. Chain of Keys begins things with an intent, rolling swing, giving way to the shuddering shocks of guitar that open The Ministry of Defence, where Harvey’s voice takes on an evil, velvety tone that hasn’t been heard in quite some time. She bobs in front of the stage’s backdrop of shadowed, recessed panels as she sings the song’s plaintive litany of rubbish: “broken glass, a white jawbone / Syringes, razors, a plastic spoon… this is how the world will end”, and her band’s heavy panting adds an unsettling edge.
It’s no surprise that The Hope Six Demolition Project sounds better live: nearly everything does. But it’s not just the usual boost of atmosphere and rough, unpredictable live energy that these songs gain. They come to life: tracks that could seem distant are filled in, filled out, by Harvey’s powerful presence. She roams, shimmies and poses, her hands imploring, framing, pointing. The rippling black feathers of her costume, too, seem to indicate a halfway house between the mannered, head-dressed bird-of-battle she became for the Let England Shake shows, often spotlit and rigid, and the boa-ed, vengeful vamp of yore.
That hint of sex and humour and life, as well as all the misery and horror and death, gives a fascinating depth and uncanniness to her performance. The chilly, detached side to her falsetto is brought to good use on the disturbing singsong of A Line in the Sand, where an unidentified speaker from her war diaries trills “We got things wrong/ But I believe we also did some good”, while ‘Medicinals’ and Hope Six’s title track have a rousing, rambunctious energy. Less successful is The Orange Monkey, dedicated to photojournalist collaborator Seamus Murphy, an unremarkable song that doesn’t seem to have fully completed the transition from poem to lyric (it also appears in Murphy and Harvey’s book The Hollow of the Hand).
Then there’s the gorgeous trio of songs from Let England Shake at the centre of the setlist. The title track creeps in with its skeletal jangle, Harvey giving it a bit of the old Vampira kabuki, lunging low, spirit fingers atwitch. Circling birds are silhouetted in the summer evening air as she sings “I’ve seen flies swarming everyone” to the rousing handclaps of The Words That Maketh Murder. What a brilliantly ghost-at-the-feast presence she is as a festival headliner these days; you don’t get many main-stage call-and-responses like The Glorious Land’s “the fruit is orphaned children”. ‘When Under Ether’ from White Chalk fits in wonderfully, floating in soft and high and lovely as a dream of peace or death, the refrain of “human kindness” like a hallucinatory impossibility after what’s come before.
Hope doesn’t come easy, and neither does the right tone, when you’re writing about this sort of stuff. “All my words get swallowed”, sings Harvey, overwhelmed, on the heavy, doleful ‘Dollar, Dollar’, a song that deals with her struggle to express what she saw in Afghanistan and beyond. Her hands come to her face, covering her mouth to speak no evil. ‘The Wheel’ rolls in like thunder to her rescue, introducing a powerhouse closing section. ‘The Ministry of Social Affairs’ swaggers in with its saxy strut, the repetition of “that’s what they want… oh yeah… money, honey” descending into menace and madness. And then 50ft Queenie rockets in, unbelievably hard and fast and rough and loud, Harvey’s introductory “HEY!” levelling trees at the back of the park. ‘Down By The Water’ throbs with evil slink, and Harvey’s voice creaks dry and dusty and dormant on ‘To Bring You My Love’, contrasted with the sharp metallic ring of the guitars. Something slouches towards Bethlehem to be born, and she covers her eyes, to see no evil.
Anacostia offers, finally, a gentler sort of religious succour, borrowing the refrain of Wade in the Water, bathing wounds in organ thrum. “What will become of us?” Harvey asks plaintively, a question that hangs heavy in the face of the day’s awful news from Orlando. The song fades right down, so all you hear is handclaps and voices so low as to sound almost unamplified, before the stage blacks out. It’s a great ending.
But more is to come: a high point in ‘Working For The Man’, sounding deliciously dangerous to know and ‘A Perfect Day Elise’ in a heavy, bluesy, lean and mean guise, Parish banging away on that big marching drum as Harvey prowls like a sexy carrion crow. It’s a wonderful coda to a wonderful set, and so different from her last UK shows. The songs of The Hope Six Demolition Project, live, seem to have offered a bridge between the Let England Shake era and Harvey’s back catalogue, and ignited a fresh, wild spark that promises great things to come. — Emily Mackay