Dry - PJ Harvey

~~~Still worth listening to 15 years on~~~ Recently, with the arrival of PJ Harvey’s eighth album, ‘White Chalk’ I revisited ‘Dry’, her first album, released in 1992. On its release, the album wowed the music press and was hailed as an astonishing debut worldwide. I remember, because I was 20 and living in France on my third year at uni, and the ripples touched even the uncool French music scene. I was so blown away by her, at a similar age to me she had produced an album that was not only great to listen to, but showed an intelligence and maturity beyond her years and promised so much more to come. ~~~The Artist~~~ PJ (Polly Jean) Harvey has been ...

How to describe Polly Jean Harvey? A female Nick Cave? Bjork with guitars? You could compare her to Patti Smith, but she's less self-consciously literary; her music is more raw and immediate. Tom Waits shares her no-frills production values but his roots are in mellow west-coast rock: Polly's west coast would be Minehead or Weston super Mare. Sinead O'Connor has similar emotional honesty but her debut, equally stunning in its way, was lush by comparison. Face it, she's pretty well unique. Her three-piece eponymous band produces a growling, bass-heavy swamp rock, if such a thing is possible when you hail from Yeovil. The playing on this album is ...