White Chalk

( 4 )

Editorial Reviews

All Music Guide - Heather Phares
The quiet ones are always the scariest. Polly Jean Harvey's appearance on the cover of White Chalk -- all wild black hair and ghostly white dress -- could replace the dictionary definition of eerie, and the album itself plays like a good ghost story. It's haunted by British folk, steeped in Gothic romance and horror, and almost impossible to get out of your head, despite but really because of how unsettling it becomes. White Chalk is Harvey's darkest album yet -- which, considering that she's sung about dismembering a lover and drowning her daughter, is saying something. It's also one of her most beautiful albums, inspired by the fragility and timelessness of chalk lines...
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Editorial Reviews

All Music Guide - Heather Phares
The quiet ones are always the scariest. Polly Jean Harvey's appearance on the cover of White Chalk -- all wild black hair and ghostly white dress -- could replace the dictionary definition of eerie, and the album itself plays like a good ghost story. It's haunted by British folk, steeped in Gothic romance and horror, and almost impossible to get out of your head, despite but really because of how unsettling it becomes. White Chalk is Harvey's darkest album yet -- which, considering that she's sung about dismembering a lover and drowning her daughter, is saying something. It's also one of her most beautiful albums, inspired by the fragility and timelessness of chalk lines and her relative newness to the piano, which dominates White Chalk; it gives "Before Departure" funereal heft and "Grow Grow Grow" a witchy sparkle befitting its incantations. Most striking of all, however, is Harvey's voice: she sings most of White Chalk in a high, keening voice somewhere between a whisper and a whimper. She sounds like a wraith or a lost child, terrifyingly so on "The Mountain," where she breaks the tension with a spine-tingling shriek just before the album ends. This frail persona is almost unrecognizable as the woman who snarled about being a 50-foot queenie -- yet few artists challenge themselves to change their sound as much as she does, so paradoxically, it's a quintessentially PJ Harvey move. The album does indeed sound timeless, or at least, not modern. White Chalk took five months to record with Harvey's longtime collaborators Flood, John Parish, and Eric Drew Feldman, but these somber, cloistered songs sound like they could be performed in a parlor, or channeled via Ouija board. There is hardly any guitar and certainly nothing as newfangled as electric guitar besides the acoustic strumming on the beautifully chilly title track, which could pass for an especially gloomy traditional British folk song. Lyrics like "The Devil"'s "Come here at once! All my being is now in pining" could be written by one of the Brontë sisters. On a deeper level, White Chalk feels like a freshly unearthed relic because it runs so deep and dark. Harvey doesn't just capture isolation and anguish; she makes fear, regret, and loneliness into entities. In these beautiful and almost unbearably intimate songs, darkness is a friend, silence is an enemy, and a piano is a skeleton with broken teeth and twitching red tongues. "When Under Ether" offers a hallucinatory escape from some horrible reality -- quite possibly abortion, since unwanted children are some of the many broken family ties that haunt the album -- and this is White Chalk's single. What makes the album even more intriguing is that it doesn't really have much in common with the work of Harvey's contemporaries although Joanna Newsom's Ys and Scott Walker's The Drift come to mind, mostly for their artistic fearlessness or even her own catalog. It rivals Dance Hall at Louse Point for its willingness to challenge listeners, but it's far removed from Uh Huh Her, which was arguably more listenable but a lot less remarkable. In fact, this may be Harvey's most undiluted album yet. When she's at the peak of her powers, as she is on this frightening yet fearless album, the world she creates is impossible to forget, or shake off easily. White Chalk can make you shiver on a sunny day.
New York Times - Jon Pareles
The album’s 11 songs in 33 minutes are often quiet and fragile, closer to songwriters like Bjork, Lisa Germano and Thom Yorke than to the brash, postpunk P J Harvey who released her first single in 1991.
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Product Details

  • Release Date: 10/2/2007
  • Label: Island
  • UPC: 602517403260
  • Catalog Number: 000997202
  • Sales rank: 16,497

Tracks

Disc 1
  1. 1 The Devil (2:55)
  2. 2 Dear Darkness (3:09)
  3. 3 Grow Grow Grow (3:21)
  4. 4 When Under Ether (2:22)
  5. 5 White Chalk (3:07)
  6. 6 Broken Harp (1:57)
  7. 7 Silence (3:05)
  8. 8 To Talk to You (4:00)
  9. 9 The Piano (2:36)
  10. 10 Before Departure (3:45)
  11. 11 The Mountain (3:10)
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Album Credits

Performance Credits
PJ Harvey Primary Artist, Acoustic Guitar, Fiddle, Harmonica, Piano, Bass Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals, Zither
Nick Bicât Vocals
Nico Brown Concertina, Vocals
Eric Drew Feldman Piano, Keyboards, Vocals, Mellotron, Optigan, Mini Moog
John Parish Acoustic Guitar, Banjo, Percussion, Drums, Bass Guitar, Vocals, Glass
Andrew Dickson Vocals
Martin Brunsden Vocals
Briget Pearse Vocals
Jim White Percussion, Drums
Technical Credits
PJ Harvey Composer, Producer
Flood Producer, Engineer
John Parish Producer
Rob Crane Artwork
Maria Mochnacz Artwork
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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 4 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(2)

4 Star

(1)

3 Star

(0)

2 Star

(1)

1 Star

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Sort by: Showing all of 4 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted October 1, 2010

    Not to miss

    This is my first P.J. Harvey album but won't be my last. This is a beautiful introspective album. Lovely, indulging music for somber days when communication just won't do. :-)

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 1, 2010

    wisconsin death trip

    Granted this style of music is an acquired taste, for me, sadly, it evokes feelings of death rather than the joy I associate with listening to PJ Harvey. The music conjures up images of the book Wisconsin Death Trip.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 1, 2010

    Spooky new PJ

    I have so much respect for artists who must try new things. PJ has never repeated herself. This new album is strange and very different from anything she's ever done, but after repeated listens it creeps up and takes hold of the listener. It's not an every day record by any means, but as the gloomy months approach, it is like a flickering candle in the attic, waiting to be tipped. Spare, compelling, and not for everyone. It may upset many long-time fans. But not this one!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 22, 2009

    No text was provided for this review.

Sort by: Showing all of 4 Customer Reviews