The Words That Maketh Murder

Somewhere along the line, someone (THANK YOU, WHOEVER YOU ARE) recommended that I check out PJ Harvey. I'm going to take a second to set a precedent:

A big part of music blogging is just passing on information you've already heard; information that's already readily available but that you feel deserves an extra boost of hype. Everyone, Gangster Legs included, is guilty of reposting something they've gleaned from major sources, ie. Pitchfork or Gorilla Vs. Bear. But it's important to consider that this is how just about everything gets passed on. We, the bottom feeding scum of the music world, don't have Isaac Brock's email address in our Gmail rolodexes (thank God!). Whatever the means of transmission may be, whether it's by word of mouth, the internet, or telephone, information starts with a primary source, which then gets passed on to numerous secondary sources. You didn't actually read Beowulf for that high school English class, did you? (Aside: You should have! Seamus Heaney's translation of it is EPIC!) No, you Wikipedia'd that shit. That's how music blogging works too. It's a big game of Telephone.

HOWEVER...

I ignored all those articles and reviews about PJ Harvey this year. Here's what I know about her off the top of my head.

1. She's British
2. Because she's British, she probably has bad teeth and smells like onions.
3. Because she probably has bad teeth and because onions are fucking delicious, she's got an incredibly unique sounding (and smelling?) voice.
4. She's got traditional rock instrumentation on LOCKDOWN. 4/4 beats, clean, reverb laden guitars, horns, harmonies, even an autoharp.
5. She's not this week's hottest electro sensation.

That being said, "Let England Shake" is one of the best albums I've heard in a really long time. I'll cease with the embellishment and let you make up your own mind.





Rave on, Kid Rodeo, rave on...