Let England Shake＜Black Vinyl＞

PJハーヴェイの8thアルバム『Let England Shake』のLPリイシュー

■180g重量盤ブラック・ヴァイナル
■インナースリーヴ付

2011年2月にオリジナル・リリースされた8thアルバム。
シングル「The Words That Maketh Murder」、「The Glorious Land」収録。
共同プロデューサーのJohn Parishの監修の元、Loud MasteringのJason Mitchellによるリマスター音源を採用。

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

前作に続きジョン・パリッシュとのコンビで作られた4年ぶりのソロ作は、心情を吐露するこれまでの内省的な作風から一転、政界情勢やイングランド史を題材にした曲が並んでいる。だからといって、プロテスト作品というわけではない。アコギの調べに乗る叙情的な歌声が田園風景を思わせ、（言葉はわからずとも）PJからの力強くて温かいメッセージを受け取ることが出来るだろう。穏やかな表情で魅せる新境地開拓の一枚。
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