I don’t want to bang in about it, as I’ve given it a fair few column inches (Column inches? Column inches?  Who the hell do I think I am?  Clarkson?  Littlejohn?  Woodrow Wyatt - the voice of reason?) already, but the new PJ Harvey album really is a fine thing.  Not fake fine, as in “How are you?”/”Fine”. Or as in “Fine!  Take my money, my home, my children and the jewel-encrusted motorised tin –opener.  See if I care!” Or as in “PARKING FINE: £80”.  Proper fine.  Real fine.

Although White Chalk does produce a fine dust, that is fine in the slip-through-the-fingers sense of the word, but if you breathe too deeply, you’ll get some of it into your lungs and you’ll be coughing bilious clouds of chalk dotted with blood.  The childlike simplicity and the brevity of the songs belies lyrics of a more complex nature – the usual, Polly-esque mix of love, life, death (including murder and perhaps abortion), and longing, but the arrangements push them stage front and shine a spotlight on them.  There is consanginuity with Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, perhaps, another example of an artist stripping back the ephemera of their craft to produce an emotionally-draining piece of work – somehow undemanding and yet very demanding at the same time.  By the time “The Piano” comes round two thirds of the way through, I’m already shaky on my feet; one more slight push and I’m on my back.

White Chalk is, for me, her most consistently satisfying record since To Bring You My Love, all those many years ago.  It’ll get a purchase on your soul, no mistake.

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