by Will Henriksen (@will___h___)
Darkness, and the idea of darkness, is a near-constant presence in PJ Harvey’s music. It’s one of the few threads that runs through every album she has released. From her work in the early 90s through 2004’s Uh Huh Her, there are two other constants: guitar-based songwriting, and her ever-powerful voice which seemed more finely tuned with each new release.
White Chalk, originally released in 2007, consists of Harvey’s most finely distilled meditations on darkness to date. Opener “The Devil” finds its narrator anxious and doubtful, ready to give in to the devil that “wanders into her soul.” She leaves no room for resolution as she intones, “All of my being is now in pining.” On “Dear Darkness,” she burrows further into the subject. Addressing darkness now as an entity in itself, she calls it a friend and asks it to cover her again. The delicate musical backing belies the violence of the lyrics that follow, as she pivots to singing about words that “tighten, tighten, tighten” around throats.
What was most surprising about White Chalk on its original release was its sound. Harvey’s guitar and classic vocal style are almost completely absent from the album. A shift to piano, an instrument that was relatively new to her, as her main compositional tool seemed to reset her compositional style. "To Talk To You" is a haunted piano ballad that could have fit in on Radiohead's Amnesiac. “The Piano” brings the subject back to gruesome violence, with allusions to domestic violence and the worry that “nobody’s listening," but never touches the blues-based style she had always returned to on earlier albums.
Her voice, which arrived rich and strong on debut album Dry and had only grown since then, performs a U-turn on White Chalk. Her voice here is high-pitched, childish, and harder than ever to reconcile with the subject matter of her songs. Only on closing track "The Mountain" does she really sing at full force, and it's truly jarring. White Chalk was recently reissued, along with a bonus album of demos, and is well worth owning.