PJ Harvey

I never talk about music on here but the latest PJ Harvey album, Let England Shake, has inspired me to do so.
Of coarse, every PJ album is not comparable to the last or next by sound and Let England Shake is very good. But it's not To Bring You My Love or Is This Desire. Where as those are set aside from the rest is that they have songs that invoke intense emotions from me while LES is very good but I feel like no tracks stand alone.
I miss the old days of PJH with songs like ‘Missed’ that had me stomping my feet and slamming my steering wheel to the lyrics and music, ‘Long Snake Moan’ makes you realize PJH isn’t fucking around, ‘Working For the Man’ makes you listen with great anticipation for the explosion you can feel the music building but when the song never does you’re not unsatisfied but electrified. The song ‘Teclo’ invokes emotions for anyone who’s loved and never gotten or lost. ‘My Beautiful Leah’ gives you chills. ‘The Wind’ takes you away in the atmosphere of the song- it loses you for a full four minutes and then you’re back as if awakening from a dream. ‘No Girl So Sweet’ is another steering wheel / petal to the metal song as is ‘Naked Cousin’ from The Crow: City of Angels soundtrack.
Even the singles where better back then. To the sing along ‘Down By the Water’ to the whore anthem ’C’mon Billy’. ‘A Perfect Day Elise’ comes out of your speakers loud and demanding your attention. You used to not be able to ignore PJH.
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea was the seeming turning point from PJH from intense raw emotion to that of a more mature and muted and cryptic sound. Where as that album and all her albums are great- that’s where she lost me. Stories has a few stand alone songs like ‘The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore’ and ‘This is Love’ but the rest of the album seems like one long song. As is the same for Uh Huh Her and White Chalk and Let England Shake. I don’t mind albums of that nature if they’re supposed to be of that nature like Nine Inch Nails’ The Fragile (my most favorite album of all time and as it’s supposed to be all connected and a flowing album each and every song stands alone). But one long, very good song… Lets face it- that’s kinda boring. At least Uh Huh Her provided me with some of that raw emotion on the tracks ‘The Letter’ and ‘It’s You’.
I’m not giving a negative review on PJ Harvey. Just stating that I miss the mid-90’s PJH. The one that wasn’t fucking around and you couldn’t ignore.