Now, you’re unlikely to have known given that the 2011 Necessary Evil was strictly only revealed to those considered as cool and hip as a slim daddy cat on a smooth washboard of radical vibes, and so in the end even I didn’t see it as it was decided that nobody outside my own brain fulfilled the requirements, but Peej’s 2011 Mercury dominating masterpiece ‘Let England Shake’ came in at second place, behind only the Weeknd’s debut and one ahead of…
So expectations for her subsequent release were already as high as a basketball playing horse behaving in an especially pompous manner
even before The Harveyster decided to let the dreaded public (the public Ms Harvey?? The general populace?? Do you not know what they are capable of?? They once voted Jordan freaking Henderson to be on the cover of a FIFA computer game!! Sure, their democratic record has been pretty much spotless since then, but you still wouldn’t want the creepy little fuckers looking at you for any length of time) watch her record the follow up through an open recording art installation in Somerset House, which despite it’s name is actually in fucking London because everything is in London seeing as the British are perhaps the world’s most insular and least imaginative people
+5
And…
…
…yeah…
…
…
…it’s a good album
+1
But, tragically, only a good album, and most damningly an album that is distinctly unmemorable
-2
Perhaps Pee-Har was crippled by stage fright, perhaps she suffers similar crises of confidence when instructed by Japanese businessmen to pass water on demand, and instead walks over streams and brooks in a oddly conventional style not befitting of her exhilarating past
-3
That line worked in my head, honest
-1
As it seems that recording in front of a crowd has subconsciously forced Pyjama H to default to an almost bland and inoffensive style of chugging riffs and indistinct indie rock on far too many tracks here, like the ideas of unknown eyes behind the two-way glass managed to somehow pacify her usual more expansive style
-1
This generous explanation, however, cannot explain away lyrics that are ocassionally phenomenally turgid considering the quality of the artist holding the pen, as I assume that Ms Harvey, like everyone else, writes all of her lyrics while taking a dump, and the public have not yet been privy
to her composing her lyrics while relieving herself
Most of ‘Hope…’s lyrics concern themselves with the revolutionary idea that the USA is a bit different and sometimes a bit weird, but any real analysis of this already well withered topic is mostly absent, instead we’re mainly treated to ‘I saw that/Then I saw that/Then I turned a corner (she turned a corner)/And saw something else’. And when it’s not just Peej reading from her diary, there are groan-inducing platitudes like ‘The woman’s old and dressed in black/She keeps her hands behind her back/Imagine what her eyes have seen/We ask but she won’t let us in’
-4
I know I’ve not paid much attention to lyrics so far, but this is PJ freaking Harvey and especially coming after a beautifully poignant album like ‘Let England Shake’ the lyrical clangers are mystifying
-3
On ‘Uh Huh Her’ and ‘Is This Desire’, the two records generally regarded as Harvey’s weakest, the failures were of experimental mis-steps or tonal mistakes, but the thing that makes ‘The Hope Six Demolition Project’ so relatively unsatisfying is that it’s a little (whisper it) dull, and by some distance the artist’s record least likely to make a lasting impression on you
-1
Jeez, some kinda riffs, I guess, so she can have
1 Guns ‘n’ Roses Point
Like Tegsa, PJ is a victim of her own high standards, ‘Hope…’ is an extremely good album, just one that is sadly disappointing
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