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Recent Articles By Annie Zaleski

  • Sleep State
    8 p.m. Saturday, February 9. Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center, 3301 Lemp Avenue.
  • Soft
    9 p.m. Tuesday, February 12. The Bluebird, 2706 Olive Street.
  • Lloyd Dobler Effect
    9 p.m. Monday, January 14. Bluebird, 2706 Olive Street.
  • Career (Remix)
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  • The Aviation Club
    9 p.m. Friday, January 4. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue.

National Features

  • Houston Press
    "It Was Like an Armageddon Movie"

    For days after Hurricane Rita, a Texas prison was hell on earth.

    By Chris Vogel
  • SF Weekly
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    Our columnist knows Ralph Nader's running mate all too well.

    By Matt Smith
  • The Pitch
    How Not To Be a Rap Star

    First of all, lay off the Ecstasy.

    By Nadia Pflaum
  • Village Voice
    Project Runaway

    What becomes a gossip columnist most?

    By Michael Musto

Sometimes the simplest music is the most affecting. So it goes with PJ Harvey's new studio album White Chalk, which often feels like a sequel to Björk's Vespertine. Absent are the scorched-earth guitars and feral vocals for which the songwriter is known. Instead, Chalk finds solace and strength in desolation and ascetic arrangements. More specifically, this is largely a piano-and-voice album: Icicles drip from the former instrument on standouts such as "The Devil" and "Dear Darkness," songs whose sparse atmospheres resemble a movie's score. (Harvey recently decided to learn how to play the piano, which might explain the almost childlike innocence of the music.) Perhaps most jarring for longtime fans, though, is that Harvey stretches her voice to its upper range on Chalk. Instead of the booming brashness and overt sexuality conveyed by past works, Harvey sounds like a fallen angel in mourning. The ethereal effect is reminiscent of 1998's Is This Desire?, although the soprano's croons and wordless wails on Chalk rely on the contrast between sounds and silence for emotional impact. This device works well in tandem with the fragile music, although it's a very different sort of vulnerability than listeners are used to hearing from Harvey. Not that it's a bad thing: In fact, Chalk is exquisite and bewitching, an ephemeral collection of tunes that flies by too fast.

Write Your Comment show comments (2)

  1. this album is splendid!
    good review. including that song by song review posted a month ago
    that review was actully better than alot of the "bigger" magazines and or papers.

    yep.

    Comment by drinky crow — October 4, 2007 @ 04:05AM

  2. thank you so much for the kind words!

    Comment by annie zaleski — October 8, 2007 @ 09:53PM

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