I started my PJ Harvey retrospective today by listening to "Dry," which I'd not heard straight through in a long time. I only mildly appreciated this record when it first came out, but today I HEARD it like it was the first time. This album is like my shower loofah: a little abrasive & a little grimy, but it feels really good & leaves me shinier.
For a 1992 independent release, this record is paradoxically both kind of dated and ahead of its time. There were a lot of women rock artists experimenting with vocal styles in 1992, but (with the notable exception of Bjork) none of them showed the stylistic range of a hungry, blues-soaked Polly Harvey. The band evokes the Pixies with some loud-quiet-loud dynamic, and with the drums sounding raw and big, that dynamic may be the most uncomfortable part of the album - Harvey's voice pretty much demands we listen. The guitars often sound like they're barely in tune, but as much as that is a feature of the height of the Nirvana era, Harvey's voice always balances any atonality. Pretty powerful weapon, that voice.
"Sheela-Na-Gig" is the centerpiece of the album. This song would fit comfortably into the catalog of either the Pixies or Nirvana, but that is not to say it's derivative - that's to put PJ Harvey in the same company with those two bands. What sets this band apart from those two worthy contemporaries, though, is a seriously women-centric point of view. "Sheela-Na-Gig" scared me a lot as a man when I first heard it. Now I hear it much more as an invocation of timeless feminine energy, and appreciate Harvey's use of such ancient images in such powerful rock music.
This album is almost 20 years old, but I think its energy, bluesy power and dynamic vocal performance all help it to escape the early 90s to live on as a classic independent rock album. Especially as a debut, this record showcases a songwriter and a band poised on the brink of a really wide-ranging musical journey, and is a great listen.
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