| JOHN PARISH AND POLLY JEAN HARVEY Songs, like prayers, can be a form of wish fulfillment. Polly Harvey knows this - fusing romantic and religious fervor is her specialty. On Dance Hall at Louse Point, though, this specialty veers uncomfortably close to schtick. As usual, Harveys surroundings reflect the state of her heart. She tiptoes across a "Rope Bridge Crossing" for a paramour, only to find herself alone in a "City of No Sun." And as usual, Harvey transforms elusive mates into cruel gods. Her love is both sacred and profane: During "Taut," she cries for Jesus with a lusty intimacy more ob-scene than any swearword. (Though she calls him Billy, the songs man in a red car seems too sinister to be human. Could he be...Satan?) Dance Hall isn't a PJ Harvey album, but a collaboration between Polly Jean Harvey (lyrics) and longtime associate John Parish (music). That said, it contains more familiar tricks - 4-Track Demos rhythmless bare-bones arrangements, Rid of Mes vocal and volume extremes, To Bring You My Loves ambience and basic blues progressions - than original treats. Parish can make a guitar sound like its strung with barbed wire, but he lacks his partners skill at instrumental layering; in fact, many standout moments - the hum that vacuums up a riff at the start of "Civil War Correspondent," for instance - are basically studio effects. A cover of "Is That All There Is?" leaves one with no choice but to repeat the question back - though an organ conveys fairground seediness, Harvey is young and extraordinary, where the song calls for an old, ordinary presence. She'll never be a convincing Plain Jane, but Harvey can still slip on a myth like a perfectly fitting pair of shoes. Detached from her guitar here, she indulges in spoken "acting," but maintains her stark trademark: two syllables each line, sung with a see-sawing emphasis clos-er to incantation than melody. Whether luxuriating in loss or using high-pitched voices, like the Minnie Mouse-tweaks-Robert Plant pipsqueal of "Heela," to signify hysteria, she emphasizes the theatrical aspect of singing - keeping distance between her self and her characters, critiquing desire as she surrenders to it. One exception: "Urn With Dead Flowers in a Drained Pool," where her voice climbs a stairway to heaven, reaching its destination with a chorus that hits like a blinding light. --JOHNNY HUSTON |
