PJ HARVEY - The Hope Six Demolition Project

PJ Harvey is the kind of rarely accomplished artist about whom it could be said never makes the same record twice. But Hope Six is actually a strong sequel to 2011's Mercury Prize-winning Let England Shake. Though the record and its stance courts a divisive response from critics and the public, her nearly unbroken streak of terrific LPs remains unassailable. 

"Putting together The Hope Six Demolition Project must have been quite the ordeal: it involved inspiration from trips to Kosovo, Washington, D.C. and Afghanistan with photographer Seamus Murphy, and was recorded publicly as an art installation aptly titled Recording in Progress, where audiences were invited to witness the birth of Hope Six at London's Somerset House and gaze at the band through one-way mirrors as they played, performed and recorded. It was a decision that evokes the themes of this record: Harvey herself became a spectacle to scrutinize, just as Hope Six evokes the idea of observation from an outsider perspective, describing events but not having any impact upon them.
 
Compositionally, Hope Six is gorgeous, and features some of Harvey's best melodies yet. Perhaps because she worked with the same producers, it shares a sonic atmosphere with 2011's Let England Shake, making it sound something like a sister album to that release.

Throughout, The Hope Six Demolition Project is observational yet impartial, wanting to help yet feeling helpless. It's just art, and Harvey seems to know that, so though this majestic album confronts the harsh realities and truths of the world in a medium most can grasp, she seems to wonder, as I imagine we all do, what can be done besides penning a poem or singing a song.
 
In this way, The Hope Six Demolition Project implicates all of the Western world's complacency, making for a complex and challenging, though gorgeous, listen." - Exclaim!