Music Review: "To Bring You My Love" by PJ Harvey
t’s not uncommon for a single track to get taken out of context of the album it’s plucked from. The track that receives this sort of attention is usually exceptional to the rest of the album and because it stands out is the reason it’s taken out of context.
What sets “Down By the Water” by PJ Harvey apart from these songs is that it’s an apt representation of the album it hails from. It features the same buzzing distorted guitar drone in the background, PJ Harvey’s hypnotically dry, flat vocals, and the tantalizing allure of a subject being skirted.
I appreciate any album that embodies Occam’s Razor (“simple explanations are more likely to be correct than complicated ones”) in regards to musical composition. This album proves that a body of work doesn’t need excessive post-production editing and mixing or highly technical musical construction to sound unique or unconventional. Most of the album consists of simple, repetitive, and droning instrumentals underneath unequivocally talented wails.
An outlier among this outlier of an album is the song “C’mon Billy,” which sticks to the rubric of what is considered “music” more strictly than one might argue the rest of the album does. It’s layered acoustic guitar and string instruments with alternating keening and purring vocals. If it were not for Harvey’s soul-bearing and frisson-inducing vocals, I fear this album would be entirely unremarkable. Her unpredictable peaks and dips and poignant lyrics keep the listener wound tightly around her finger the entire time.
The themes and stories expressed in this album are another subject entirely; Harvey manages to make plain speak and prose sound poetic and iambic. Each subject is presented like a secret barely contained, pushing the limits of its keeper’s ability to rein, until it’s forced out into the open.
Harvey’s formational punk rock and early rock and roll influence is apparent throughout the album, but it is especially so on the track “Long Snake Moan.” It’s a rock song through and through, with its gushing opening riff and unabated vocals from deep in the chest. The underlying riff persists, but a squealier riff is placed over it. Of course, the tongue-in-cheek references are all too characteristic of honest to God rock. The song is energetic straight from the get-go, and this energy never fades while the song runs its course.
That is, until “Down By The Water,” the track that got me thinking about this album in the first place. This song is rightfully the ambassador of this modern masterpiece. It encompasses all the qualities I’ve listed to this point; the crunchy, repetitive riffs; masterfully organized structur, and the prowess gained from growing up on foundational rock albums.
This album is a tasteful 10 tracks long, and the energy settles after the radio-friendly track “Down By The Water,” but hardly to its detriment. “I Think I’m a Mother” is a contemplative, barebones track that bleeds into “Send His Love To Me,” which acts more in the vein of “C’mon Billy.”
“The Dancer” is the too-soon conclusion to, what I consider, required reading for any music lover. It’s dreamy,enthralling and the most telling of Harvey’s influences. The keyboard sets an eerie, anticipatory tone, which is an intriguing choice for the conclusion of an album and is reminiscent of King Crimson.
All in all, this album aged infinitely better than other albums from the same era and has the strong bones to remain a timeless piece of musical history. Any accolades this album received, and still receives, are well deserved. “To Bring You My Love,” by PJ Harvey is a classic that’ll undoubtedly be loved for generations to come.
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