| JOHN PARISH AND POLLY JEAN HARVEY "... The best pop music is always made when rules are broken, when people do what they're not supposed to, tear up with copybook and scream at the top of their voices, "This is Year Zero! Everything we thought until right now is redundant."Or how about Polly Harvey moaning and yelping her way through 'Losing Ground,' a primal voodoo wail driven by dustbin-lid drums and eerie six-string clunking? A track that, at least until Polly's unmistakeable vocals blaze in, could as easily emerged from the ruffest trip-hop stable as the most experimental lo-fi stereolab. And that's before PJ's West Country neighbours Global Communication take on 'Civil War Correspondent' and hollow it out into an echoing, lonely torch song of pain and passion, before we've heard Harvey in best one-woman-and-a-guitar soul-baring mode on 'That Was My Veil' and well before she turns angelic choirboy for the devastating lip-quiverer 'Who Will Love Me Now?'. This is state-of-the-art pop circa '96, willing to use all the tricks in the book and invent a few more along the way. One day, all records will be as ingenious and full of surprises as this. Well, nearly." |
