‘I Inside the Old Year Dying’ is PJ Harvey’s tenth album, and her first in seven years. Throughout her career, she has always ensured that each phase of her progress has taken her somewhere new, but her latest music is audacious and original even by her own standards. Full of a sense  of a cyclical return to new beginnings, it combines its creative daring with a sense of being open and inviting, inthe most fascinating way. The new songs, Harvey says, offer “a resting space, a solace, a comfort, a balm-which feels timely for the times we’re in.”

And that intro from the press release is as good a place to start as any, I started listening to Polly Jean back in the time of 5OFT Queenie coming out, stocking Dry when I first opened my own record shop, have moved with her through virtually every stage of her career and watched and listened as every LP has unravelled each with their own personality each echoing a time in Polly Jean’s life making a statement from a snaphot, but always moving forward, the music itself constantly changing and adapting and very much as with people like Bowie and Nick Cave fans will be drawn to a specific era, a genre and sometimes not move forward with the artist happy in the now, unwilling to Embrace change, not something that can be levelled at artists such as Polly Jean.

So what does the LP give us again drawing on Polly Jeans words from the press release

” In the album’s liminal world, scattered with biblical imagery and references to Shakespeare, all these distinctions dissolve. “I’m somewhere where I’ve not been before,” Harvey says. “What’s above,what’s below, what’s old, what’s new, what’s night, what’s day? It’s all the same, really–and you can enter it and get lost. And that’s what I wanted to do with the record, with the songs, with the sound, with everything”.

Opening up with “Prayer at the gate” your instantly drawn into that world of Aural soundscapes faved by Warren Ellis and the Producer flood’s work really draws you in, this is a very different PJ Harvey, the voice an instrument in the whole rather than a lead. Next up “Autum leaves” has quite a Soulful almost funk feel in the backdrop, but the vocals push the song forward in a very different way almost sitting outside the music dipping into and weaving through the Sound. “Lonesome tonight” again has a very different feel a song that stops you dead and you just have to listen, the story unfolding takes me to a parallel with the Orianthi Poem written in old Cornish, this is probably my fave on the LP, it twists and turns and is I think one of the strongest PJ Vocal performances I’ve heard.

“Seen and I “ hints at past sounds but again the vocals move in a very different direction, the John Parish influence I think coming to the fore. “The Nether edge” weaves a very different soundscape almost industrial in its reverb and repetition, but again the vocals sit outside moving in and out, The acoustic guitar that introduces “I inside the old year dying” drifts away as that industrial soundscape takes over, the music changing and adapting to the story being told. “All Souls” enters almost hesitantly the piano and vocals overtaken as the distortion and reverb comes in. At this point you realise how strong the Vocals are throughout this LP I would definitely say this is one Of PJ’s strongest ever vocal performances,

Moving through the rest of the LP “A child’s question July” “I inside the old I dying” with its stop start animation led video, “August” with its initial Piano led soundscape, flows seamlessly into “a Child’s question July”which has an almost mystical feel weaving a fairytail picture, “A noiseless noise” finishes things up with again one of my faves of the LP tearing you back with power and intensity to earlier PJ Harvey works.

This is a powerful LP but in a number of ways, it holds your attention and is very definitely one to listen to all the way through, for someone new to PJ Harvey I’m not sure that it’ll set things up for you to explore the artists earlier work this Isn’t ‘Stories from the City’, ‘Is this Desire’, ‘Dry’ or ‘Pure’, its also a long way from ‘The Hope Six Demolition Project’ and ‘Let England shake’, but if you sit and listen you can pick up pieces from them all just re-interpreted. It might not hit you first listen, but stick with it I think it’ll creep on to my LP of the year list come December!!

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Author: Nev Brooks