Working with habitual collaborator John Parish, Polly Jean abandons the edgy piano focused vibe of her last solo album “White Chalk” (incidentally produced by John Parish), in favour of a return to 90’s grunge and guttural folk rock.Anyone bought up on an insipid sugary musical diet of Take That and James Blunt will most probably find this album a little harsh, with its pointed musical edges and unforgiving lyrics. Those with more encompassing musical tastes will recognise sparks of genius.
Album opener “Black Hearted Love” is a powerful and brutal song with a dominant rhythm guitar over gnashing and scraping electric guitars lurking in the background. A beautiful elegance lies beneath this perfect piece of Nirvana-esque grunge pop.
“Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen” has a more folky rhythm with distinct PJ vocals producing a track reminiscent of 2000’s seminal “Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea”.
"Leaving California" is delivered in a pitch that is likely to shatter any unrestrained wine glasses in the vicinity of your tweeters. Meanwhile, John tinkers away with guitars and gizmo’s to provide a weird Radiohead style backdrop.
The title track sounds like a feminine Grinderman that starts with gentle acoustic strumming and ranting lyrics before descending into a Beavis and Butthead snigger, more intense guitars and a chorus enabling her to repeatedly growl “I want his fuckin ass”. There is no parental advisory sticker adorning the album cover, but I guess that’s just because her natural audience are more mature anyway.
“Pig Will Not” is a raw sounding sonic attack featuring an angry Polly barking “woof, woof” at us.
The wife thinks it’s all just a terrible din, I think it’s an engrossing joyous noise.
Incidentally Amazon delivered the album on Saturday, 2 days prior to the official release date (30th March 2009). Hence I got the weekend to review it and was able to post this review on the release date. You lucky people.
