Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
Tuesday, February 4, 2025
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Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
A complete about turn for PJ Harvey’s third album, released in 1995. After Rid of Me she had ceased working with her band and what transpired is a much moodier beast than its predecessor. The album opens with the creeping melancholy of the title track, more of a low growl than the roars of the previous album. It’s malevolent to say the least. It’s not all moody fare, Meet Ze Monsta has a steady, grinding beat, while Long Snake Moan is the heaviest thing here, and the one song that could have fit on Rid of Me.
But it’s the
quieter numbers which reveal themselves after several plays. Working for the Man is at times, barely
there, with just the merest of drumbeats and muted stabs of bass. Teclo is at the heart of the album, a low,
slow rumble with focus very much on Harvey’s voice. Down By The Water is creepy and nightmarish
(in a good way) conjuring up all kinds of dark imagery. The instrumentation reduces to barely-there
proportions on the primitive blues I Think I’m A Mother. These tracks slip by almost unnoticed at
first but repeat listens will allow them to burrow into your brain.
C’mon Billy
and Send His Love To Me are two of the more fleshed out tracks here, with
strings and an eerie keyboard accompanying a fine line in acoustic guitar. And none of these tracks outstay their
welcome. Proceedings finish with The
Dancer, a mysterious lament which seems to sum up the album.
Although the album initially seems understated in comparison to the manner in which Rid of Me grabs your ears and compels you to listen, To Bring You My Love is one of those albums that you’ll suddenly realise you’ve been listening to it for 3 weeks straight.
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Monday, January 20, 2025
Fields of the Nephilim - Dawnrazor
The real question is: is it ok for a grown man to be listening to Fields of the Nephilim, western-channeling, flour dusted anachronistic rockers?? 100% yes. This stuff is certainly a throwback to the 'golden age of goth' in the late 80s, a time when the Sisters of Mercy, Mission, Cure and the Cult all featured in the charts of the time.
This is the band's debut album, released in 1987. It starts with no small amount of drama with a version of Ennio Morricone's The Harmonica Man, before kicking in with goth anthem Slow Kill. Not a heavy track as such, guitars jangle rather than slam as singer Carl McCoy wails out the lyrics. The guitars are an almost intoxicating mix of arpeggio after arpeggio. Volcano (Mr Jealousy Has Returned) follows in a similar vein, another pacy, atmospheric anthem with McCoy's gargled vocals roaring "yearning yearning yearning".
The moody plod of Vet for the Insane provides a change of pace. Here growling guitars are added to the jangle before the tracks is rounded off with more Morricone-esque flourishes. Dust and Reanimator follow, two power anthems. Far from being doom and gloom they are pretty anthemic and uplifting. If it's drama you want look no further than the thrilling guitar swells of the penultimate title track.
This sort of stuff was pretty popular at the time and it's easy to forget how enjoyable it is to listen to.
Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Monday, January 6, 2025
Sunday, January 5, 2025
Saturday, January 4, 2025
PJ Harvey - Rid of Me
PJ Harvey’s
debut was pretty accomplished but little can prepare you for the gloriously
angry howl of its follow up, released in 1993. Even the cover is
visceral, to say the least. Steve Albini was enlisted to create a heavier
sound, and succeeded in spades. The quiet-quiet LOUD thing had yet to
become a cliché and several tracks here follow this format. The title track
features Harvey's whispered, barely there vocals for two and a half minutes
before she roars "don't you wish you'd never, never met her!" with
pounding drums and Harvey lashing out the guitar riffs. The track
finishes with a demented sounding Harvey screech-singing "LICK MY LEGS I'M
ON FIRE, LICK MY LEGS OF DESIRE!" And that's just the opening track.
Missed cranks
slowly into gear, leading to a menacing chorus of "I’ve missed him"
over bone-shaking, sledgehammer heavy guitar. A tortured howl introduces
Legs, dirty, for want of a better word, grungy guitar powers the song along
before a metaphorically-bloodied Harvey wails "did you ever wish me
dead... but I could kill you instead". Don't cross her! It's
followed by the viscerally titled Rub It Til It Bleeds, which lurches savagely
back and forth between quieter verses and heavy as fuck choruses with
smashed drums.
Mansize
Sextet parks guitar and drums for sinister, stabbing violin as PJ Harvey moans "got
my leather boots on", while there's a relatively ‘normal’ version later
on the album with the violins replaced by snarling guitars.
There’s no
let up on the album, she rips through a practically metal (or mental) version
of Bob Dylan's Highway 61' Revisited, and the breathlessly rocking Yuri G. It culminates in the 95 seconds of
pure bile of the penultimate track Snake, before finishing on the lurching
Ecstasy.
An
extraordinary piece of work, there’s nothing else like it in PJ Harvey’s
discography.
Friday, January 3, 2025
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Thursday, January 2, 2025
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