- Audio CD
- Number of Discs: 1
- Label: island
- ASIN: B000SFYUV2
- Other Editions: Audio CD | Vinyl | MP3 Download
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 145,887 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
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Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The Polly Jean Harvey you hear on White Chalk is not the wild harpy you heard gnashing and wailing on "Sheela-Na-Gig", or the urbane punk stateswoman of 2000’s Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea. No, this is another evolution in her singular career--one that sees electric guitar banished to the cobwebbed attic, tight cat-suit covered over by Victorian gown, and Polly’s yearning vocals sounding strangely removed, like they’re being broadcast from another, distant age. Piano is the primary instrument here, augmented by occasional, dusty sounding guitar or other, more esoteric stringed instruments--a sparse, limited musical canvas that places the emphasis on song and lyrics. And while initially, they seem foreboding and slow to open up, repeated spins reveal this to be a set of ghostly power and eerily timelessness. "Dear Darkness" is spacious and supremely measured, with Harvey singing of words "tightening around the throat of the one I love", while the harp-accompanied "Grow Grow Grow" is impossibly highly-strung, its pain buttoned-up in constricting corsets and tight bows. Only on the closing "The Mountain" does she approach the cathartic anger of her previous work. But then, White Chalk is something else entirely -- a icy English gothic that’s powerful in its choked restraint. --Louis Pattison
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
PJ Harvey at her best, yet different from herself!,
By
This review is from: White Chalk (Audio CD)
With "White Chalk" PJ Harvey radically changes her style, turning to a quieter, more intimate atmosphere yet the power, the anguish and the intensity are still there with her talent. Songs like Grow Grow Grow and White Chalk itself are amongst her best ever.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hauntingly beautiful,
By Mr Booja Booja (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: White Chalk (Audio CD)
As other reviewers have said, this is a melancholy affair from start to finish (although that description cetainly doesn't do it justice). It might take a few listens for you to get truly drawn into it but my experience was that it's heart wrenchingly delicate and wonderfully raw at the same time.
If you want to get an idea of what it sounds like before you buy, I'd say a cross between Philip Glass, the melancholic side of Grandaddy, the Pretenders, Lou Barlow, Ava Adore era Smashing Pumpkins and PJ Harvey of course. Actually now I've written that, the comparison seem silly - the album is so much more than that - but I'll leave it there in case it's helpful to anyone.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What?... a 45!,
By
This review is from: White Chalk [VINYL] (Vinyl)
Muscially, this one will take some work on the part of the listener. Its true value will become apparent after numerous replays. The best music always strikes me like this at first, so don't be put off.
This edition: ... is vinyl at its best, pressed on solid heavy-grade disc with very low surface noise. Just remember that it plays at 45 rpm, there is no indication of this on the disc, or the sleeve that this full album plays at a non-standard speed. There can be a sound-quality penalty in fitting so much time on a disc when running at this speed.
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