| Tuned In, 09/27/96 By Chuck Campbell, News-Sentinel music critic ''Dance Hall at Louse Point,'' John Parish and Polly Jean Harvey (Island) Apparently Polly Jean Harvey feared she was getting too mainstream. ''Dance Hall at Louse Point'' turns her abrasion factor up a level when abrasion has always been her forte. Not to diminish the contributions of John Parish (who wrote the music on 11 tracks), but the enigmatic Harvey is the inescapable focal point of ''Dance Hall.'' As chief engineer of the band PJ Harvey, she's been a riveting force in the '90s, releasing three incredible albums in a four-year span, each of which rated consideration for best record of the year -- ''Dry'' (1992), ''Rid of Me'' (1993) and ''To Bring You My Love'' (1995, co-produced by Parish). She's invented a kind of modern-rock blues with a freewheeling command of music that blisters or subdues and vocals so raw with emotion they bleed. Far too severe for general consumption, Harvey has nonetheless earned one of the most devoted followings of any contemporary act. Now there's ''Dance Hall at Louse Point.'' In some respects, it sounds like a PJ Harvey album -- music swinging from tranquilizing to unsettling as the tormented Harvey swerves in and out of psychosis (sometimes within the same song). But Parish's instrumentation is usually limited to a few chords, whether it's the fiery repetition of ''City of No Sun,'' the hard minimalism of ''Un Cercle Autour du Soleil'' or the spare play on ''Rope Bridge Crossing'' and the instrumental opening, ''Girl.'' (The title track is a more compelling instrumental, as guitar and drum run parallel with twisting abandon.) Harvey is the exclamation point on the songs, and she's puzzling as ever -- wandering drunkenly through ''Rope Bridge Crossing'' (''Now I'm treading very carefully/And I hope that I don't scream/And I hope that I don't fall''), searching to reclaim her innocence on ''That Was My Veil'' (''No words can heal my heart/Inside I'm broken'') and singing ''Jesus save me'' like an apparition on ''Taut'' before ripping into a whispered, rambling and disquieting tale. After professing her belief in God on ''Lost Fun Zone,'' she adds ''I don't believe that I gotta die someday.'' Meanwhile, her repeated quest for redemption on the album is answered by a smooth-talking man on the crashing ''Heela.'' However, the album veers into bracing austerity, and not of the commanding ''Rid of Me'' sort: It's easy to relate to her screeches of ''I can't breathe!/I can't breathe!'' on the haywired performance-art bit ''City of No Sun,'' and ''Urn With Dead Flowers in a Drained Pool'' keeps cycling through unlistenable rounds. In a moment of true inspiration, Harvey and Parish deliver a more-or-less straightforward cover of Peggy Lee's classic ''Is That All There Is?'' They pay faithful homage to Lee with fitting matter-of-factness, yet the song is out of step with the rest of the album: It's too clearly defined and too well-rounded. ''Dance Hall at Louse Point'' is as challenging as anything Harvey has done, but meeting her challenge doesn't bring the usual rewards. Rating (five possible): FOUR STARS |
