PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

Coming clean ~ I'm woefully uninformed on a handfull of key PJ Harvey albums. Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea.  Is This Desire.  Uh Huh Her.  Don't know them too well, which only makes my life less rich because of everything I do know of her and her solid catalog - it's filled with varied, smart, rockin', just damn good music.  Her earlier albums have always held a tender and roughly worn spot close to my heart. Dry and Rid Of Me crash and clamor along with a Capt. Beefheart blues fracas, a sex-fueled 'we're not gonna take it cause I'm busy givin it to ya' stomp, grunge to out-grunge anything else of the time but the edges softened by cellos and PJ's hushed moans and groans.
Let England Shake comes on the heels - 4 years later, but still - of White Chalk, somehow a sister album to this lovely release. Recorded in the same 19th Century church overlooking the chalk white cliffs of Dover, with the same outstanding cast of supporting/collaborating musicians and producer (John Parish, former Bad Seed Mick Harvey, and Flood, respectively) the musical ante is upped here and the fingers are pointed with much more alarming alacrity and precision.
First off, this is an absolutely gorgeous album. Deeply dark and affecting, sure, but gorgeous - the instrumentation, the production and the overall SQ (props to Arcade Fire and anyone else who records their albums in old churches - there are some righteous atmospherics lent to the whole by just setting up in there), and then the lyrics. Oh, the lyrics...PJ has never, to me, had the greatest voice. She uses it to great effect and all but her attitude, delivery, and the lyrics far surpass the actual voice that belts it out. Here too, this is true, though on a couple tracks - like on the lovely 'On Battleship Hill' - she slides into a high register artfulness that reminds me of Joanna Newsom (bordering on Bjorkishness too) and it works great for her and for the song. Still, the lyrics are key to this album - no matter how brilliantly supported they are by the music - and they're smart, provocative and scary. Polly Jean is pissed and pissed for her countrymen and for everyone who've lost people in useless wars or been frustrated by the seeming necessity of war - which, of course, is everyone.  She delves into the history of warfare - mostly sticking to England's involvement, as well as culling from Iraq and Afganistan front-line testimonials.  She doesn't mince words here but between the wincing truths she wrings moments of poetic reprieve.
                             I have seen and done things I want to forget;           
                             soldiers fell like lumps of meat,                         
                             blown and shot out beyond belief.                           
                             arms and legs were in the trees.                                

Despite this universal theme, Let England Shake is a heavily-leaning English album. I can't help but place it next to many things from the Mekons, especially their amazing Journey to the End of the Night. This is music that would sit firmly and comfortably on a worn stool in late night drinking sessions in any south London pub but ultimately it sends you out into the street to rage loud and lonely against all the sad, mad wrongness that's brought upon us.
                               Let me walk through the stinking alleys
                               to the music of drunken beatings,
                               past the Thames River, glistening like gold
                               hastily sold for nothing.

Thanks Polly Jean for your anger, your frustration, and your restraint in the face of all this, and for putting out another kick-ass, lovely album.