The Garden, a PJ Harvey Discussion Site

LES was released on iTunes in the US today. Whew!

Let England Shake is at UK #4 in the midweek charts!

Excellent position. The BRIT Awards are this week, so it's likely to slip down, but what a good start. Here's a reminder of the peak positions for all PJ's albums:

Dry - #11
Rid of Me - #3
4-Track Demos - #19
To Bring You My Love - #12
Dance Hall at Louse Point - #46
Is This Desire? - #17
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea - #23
Uh Huh Her - #12
White Chalk - #11
A Woman A Man Walked By - #25

I know mine has just arrived from amazon

"Limited Edition Digipack" - it's a nice fold-out card sleeve but Digipack!


the White Chalk Digipack had link to an EPK online but nothing with this one.

Finally have the album in my hands! The paid-for sound quality makes all the difference (even though I think I'm losing my hearing slowly).

Teclo25 wrote:

Pluton wrote:14. The Last Living Rose (like Polly_Jean_Cave, really don't understand why everybody likes this song. It's so lame comparing to the live version)

It will grow on you.

Yes. I don't think there is a weak song on the album.

Got it! Love it! Listening to it!

an incredible album. love it as much as WC and TBYML, i think even more, but maybe i am in a honeymoon

The Nightingale was off putting to me at first, but the second listen got me, now i cant stop listening to it. i think it maybe the best of all the new songs. i love how it moves through stages, and then tails off. Battleship is also up there for me

i think this album is Polly at her very best. it reveals itself in layers, slowly as well as immediatley

Does anyone have the official lyrics for nightingale, cuz I'm not exactly sure what shes saying at the end of the song. I think I hear heads on top of stakes around me and then something about angels?

Yeh the ending is basically the same as All & Everyone, but not as good.

Got the LP on the way from the UK but I stopped by my local to grab the CD and it's late getting there

I hath received my copy upon my return home this afternoon. I'm currently listening to Glourious Land! It's so funny how I know the words to a lot of the songs already! I agree with some of the earlier comments before the album was released; I've liked all the songs instantly. My sister got her issue of the New Yorker, they gave the album a bad-ish review because it's not like Rid of Me. What idiots! Newsweek agrees! At least Rolling Stone gave a good review! Three stars is pretty good for Rolling Stone.

It has received very good reviews overall. But you sense that some critics take it too personally, such as in Dusted Mag. and Dot Music. Their writing recalls the lyric from Ian Curtis (Joy Division) in the song A Means to an End, " I put my trust in you ". They go into the past to try and justify the present. How dare she create music I don't appreciate and approve. It's fine to have constructive criticism dealing with the album itself. But being vitriolic and vindictive does not indicate insight and understanding. That's fine if it's not to your taste, everyone has their own critique. Just review the album, not the person.
Personally I Love It.

I thought Rolling Stone's review was short and polite, but deserved better. They're more likely to devote several paragraphs to a pedestrian song by Lady Gaga called "Born This Way", but unwilling to give "Let England Shake" the attention it deserves. What a rag.

Rolling Stones's been slowly turning into some kind of fashion magazine during these past years. Too commercial I think. It used to deal with many kinds of styles not long ago but, at least in the Spanish edition, there's been a turning point (to worse) this last decade. Too many pages about fashion and complements themselves for me, I believe.

However, and to be fair, "White Chalk" got a lot of coverage: it was named album of the month, I think, there was an interview with Polly and quite a few mentions about her in the numbers that followed. Anyway, most of the articles were written by the same journalist, so I think she was just a lover (Polly was said to be the artist that had used the word "lover" the most in her lyrics by that issue )

That Dusted review is a lot more constructive than the New York mag review.