PJハーヴェイ、約3年半振りとなる8作目のスタジオ･アルバムが完成！収録楽曲は2007～2008年に書かれたもの。ピアノを核にした内省的なサウンドから脱却したものだと言われている。Dorsetにある19世紀に海を臨む崖の上に建てられた教会で約5週間程でレコーディング。Flood、John Parish、Mick Harveyも参加している。インターナル盤、ジュエルケース仕様。
IMS

発売・販売元 提供資料 （2011/01/24）

Rolling Stone (p.60) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "The sound is muted guitar/organ balladry, heavy on melody but never rocking out, channeling her voice through different electronic filters for that extra touch of spooky alienation." Rolling Stone (p.74) - Ranked #47 in Rolling Stone's '50 Best Albums Of 2011' -- "There's a punk sense of horror in low-key death-folk ballads like 'The Last Living Rose'..." Spin (p.73) - "Slack, virile, and fantastically rhythmic, LET ENGLAND SHAKE is a glorious uncoiling....Musically, the record is stompy and melodic." Spin (p.59) - Ranked #2 in Spin's 'The Top 40 Albums Of 2011' -- "PJ Harvey's voice is so heroically strong, the rustic arrangements so bracingly irreducible that LET ENGLAND SHAKE's brutal vision becomes beautiful and redemptive." Entertainment Weekly (p.83) - "[H]er loosest, most eclectic effort in ages....It's a hoedown for the end of civilization." -- Grade: A Uncut (p.80) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "LET ENGLAND SHAKE is the sound of someone as maddened as they are enthralled, aglow with anger and passion." Uncut (p.35) - Ranked #1 in Uncut's '50 Best Albums Of 2011' -- "[W]ords and music that complemented one another beautifully; intelligence, emotional commitment, craftsmanship and creativity stitched together in auspicious fashion." Magnet (p.43) - Ranked #5 in Magnet's '20 Best Albums Of 2011' -- "LET ENGLAND SHAKE is easily Harvey's most accessible record since 2000's STORIES FROM THE CITY, STORIES FROM THE SEA and, conceptually, one of her best." Billboard (p.32) - "The standout moment, among many, is the warbling track 'Written on the Forehead' with a heavily processed psychedelic swirl dovetailing seamlessly with Niney the Observer's reggae classic 'Blood and Fire.'" Mojo (Publisher) (p.94) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Of all her many guises -- doomed blues siren; righteous rock vixen; tormented Victorian ghost -- this may be her most powerful....It turns out, more than ever, Polly Harvey was made for these times." Record Collector (magazine) (p.87) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]here are some beautiful and strong moments on this album. The opening title track and 'Last Living Rose' are Polly at her unpretentious best..." Clash (Magazine) - "Displaying the most vigorously strident songwriting of her career, its lush poetic folk is concurrently bold, barbed and muscular."

Rovi

PJ Harvey followed her ghostly collection of ballads, White Chalk, with Let England Shake, an album strikingly different from what came before it except in its Englishness. White Chalks haunted piano ballads seemed to emanate from an isolated manse on a moor, but here Harvey chronicles her relationship with her homeland through songs revolving around war. Throughout the album, she subverts the concept of the anthem -- a love song to ones country -- exploring the forces that shape nations and people. This isnt the first time Harvey has been inspired by a place, or even by England: she sang the praises of New York City and her home county of Dorset on Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. Harvey recorded this album in Dorset, so the setting couldnt be more personal, or more English. Yet she and her longtime collaborators John Parish, Mick Harvey, and Flood travel to the Turkish battleground of Gallipoli for several of Let England Shakes songs, touching on the disastrous World War I naval strike that left more than 30,000 English soldiers dead. Her musical allusions are just as fascinating and pointed: the title track sets seemingly cavalier lyrics like Lets head out to the fountain of death and splash about to a xylophone melody borrowed from the Four Lads Istanbul (Not Constantinople), a mischievous echo of the questions of national identity Harvey explores on the rest of the album (that she debuted the song by performing it on the BBCs The Andrew Marr Show for then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown just adds to its mischief). The Words That Maketh Murder culminates its grisly playground/battleground chant with a nod to Eddie Cochrans anthem for disenfranchised 50s teens Summertime Blues, while Written on the Forehead samples Nineys Blood and Fire to equally sorrowful and joyful effect. As conceptually and contextually bold as Let England Shake is, it features some of Harveys softest-sounding music. She continues to sing in the upper register that made White Chalk so divisive for her fans, but its tempered by airy production and eclectic arrangements -- fittingly for an album revolving around war, brass is a major motif -- that sometimes disguise how angry and mournful many of these songs are. The Last Living Rose recalls Harveys Dry-era sound in its simplicity and finds weary beauty even in her homelands grey, damp filthiness of ages, but on England, she wails, You leave a taste/A bitter one. In its own way, Let England Shake may be even more singular and unsettling than White Chalk was, and its complexities make it one of Harveys most powerful works. ~ Heather Phares

Rovi