PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old Year Dying (Album Review)
Wednesday, 12 July 2023
Written by Tom Morgan
Photo: Steve Gullick
A companion piece to her 2022 poetry book Orlam, the 12 tracks on PJ Harvey’s ‘I Inside the Old Year Dying’ are enigmatic and enthralling fragments that find her looking inwards to a ghostly place filled with folklore and memories.
Almost entirely written in the studio, alongside trusted collaborators John Parish and Flood, Polly Jean’s 10th studio album feels like Nick Cave’s recent works, where each track seems to form in front of you, bleeding out from its creator’s psyche.
Its world is built out of Harvey’s life experiences, which are fictionalised in the form of a coming-of-age story set in rural Dorset.
She effortlessly uses a stylised local dialect throughout, which heightens the sense of otherworldliness: ‘churchyard’ becomes ‘bwoneyard’, ‘leaves’ become ‘tree-tears’.
The sonics are similarly expressive, tilting from skeletal electronica on The Nether-edge to trudging psych-folk on A Child’s Question, August to abrasive experimental rock on closer A Noiseless Noise. It’s an album of endless layers.
There are some fascinating motifs, including references to Elvis Presley, who stalks the central character’s world like the soldier in Víctor Erice’s 1973 film The Spirit Of The Beehive, a similarly lyrical work that ‘I Inside the Old Year Dying’ often recalls. If you’re willing to let this strange, ethereal album in, it’ll reveal itself as one of the most engrossing and magical records of the year to date.
PJ Harvey Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Fri September 22 2023 - DUBLIN 3Olympia Theatre
Sat September 23 2023 - DUBLIN 3Olympia Theatre
Mon September 25 2023 - GLASGOW Barrowland
Tue September 26 2023 - GLASGOW Barrowland
Thu September 28 2023 - LONDON Roundhouse
Fri September 29 2023 - LONDON Roundhouse
Mon October 02 2023 - MANCHESTER Albert Hall
Tue October 03 2023 - MANCHESTER Albert Hall
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