Search dance music

Review: It has been said before that Polly Jean Harvey's 1998 album, Is This Desire, marked a watershed moment in her career. A veritable coming of age record that failed to match the commercial heights of To Bring You My Love, but was actually a far more complete and personal thing. Less angry than preceding efforts, it painted a more balanced and accurate portrait of an artist whose formative years were pockmarked with media analysis and criticism of her visible powerful attributes - sexuality and fury.

Coupled with the fact that Harvey has never been one to pander to scenes in the hope of top ten chart success, and you can only imagine how happy she was with the finished product. And all this is before we start banging on about the musicality, from title track's subtle, hushed baritone blues to the garage rock-out of 'A Perfect Day Elise'.

Review: Polly Jean Harvey broke into the common conscious with her unique and individual approach to alternative rock, and she's managed to maintain that aural autonomy throughout a storied career that has simultaneously found favour in the musical mainstream and refused to stray far from the leftfield. A difficult balance to strike, this, her eighth solo studio album, is indicative of that point. There's nothing here not to enjoy, but there's very little here you could predict.

Not least given where it sits in her back catalogue. Production began as the seminal but decidedly hushed White Chalk was released, and this record couldn't be more different from the preceding LP. Doing away with introspect, for the most part anyway, and refocusing attention away from pianos, it's a rousing indie collection that further cements the artist as one of Britain's national treasures.

Review: Following a couple of years spent re-releasing many of her classic albums, alongside sets featuring demo versions of the same songs, Polly Jean Harvey is finally ready to release a new album - her first for seven long years. Reunited with long-time collaborators John Parish and Flood, Harvey delivers alluring, at times otherworldly songs - delivered beautifully and with more than a hint of world-weary emotions - backed by sparse, effects-laden instrumentation, metronomic grooves and plenty of pastoral, folk-influenced intent. We've not listened to the lyrics intently enough (yet) to adequately discuss their themes, but in advance Harvey's label promised "biblical images and references to Shakespeare" amongst the introspection and hard-worn commentary.

Review: Over the last 12 months, Polly Jean Harvey has delivered remastered versions of many of her most acclaimed albums, while also releasing collections of demo recordings for each set. The latest to get this treatment is her critically acclaimed set Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea. Famously, most of the songs focus on love and relationships and were written while Harvey was living in New York City at the tail end of the '90s. As with her other collections of demos, most of the early versions showcased here feature little more than Harvey on guitar and lone or multi-tracked vocals. This raw and stripped-back approach gives new life to some songs, with highlights including the heart-aching 'The Mess We're In' and fuzz-soaked 'This Is Love'.

Review: We've been treated to reissues of everything else from PJ Harvey's spectacular catalogue, so it's only right we get a chance to savour the deeper cuts that shape out the persona of the high priestess of alternative rock. Gathering together an exhaustive 59 B sides, demos and previously unreleased tracks, this six-LP box set takes us into the heart of Polly Jean's writing process, showing the raw power in the songwriting when it's just her voice and an overdriven guitar, and showing us the broader possibilities of songs which didn't make the cut for the studio albums. This is a true treasure of music getting the authoritative release she deserves.