Album Review

PJ Harvey and John Parish team up for Dance Hall

By Tim Grierson
Staff Writer

John Parish & Polly Jean Harvey
Dance Hall at Louse Point
(Island Records)

PJ Harvey continues to prove that she won't adhere to any rules forced on her. Rid of Me from 1993 was a good, old-fashioned knucklebuster that wouldn't let the cursed sophomore jinx get in the way of her sweaty, clenched-teeth catharsis. From the guitar-and-drum corrosion of that album came last year's moody and otherworldly To Bring You My Love, which highlighted Harvey's range as a singer and a songwriter.
On this third album her material again took aim at ill-fated lovers who were either devils or saviors (take your pick). Add in the acoustic throwaway 4-Track Demos and you have a woman whose themes may stay the same but whose sphere of influence will never sit still.
John Parish, longtime friend and chief collaborator on To Bring You My Love, has joined forces with Harvey on a duet album of sorts. He writes the songs, she sings her lyrics, they co-produce, we all get to argue who had a stronger say in the album's construction. Reviews have split their time between discussing who deserves more of the praise (or blame) for the disc and actually digging into what they've come up with.
Dance Hall at Louse Point is an amalgam of Harvey's sounds--part chanteuse, part hard rocker--and if it's not another definitive statement from a pretty important force in music, it's certainly a beguiling departure for her and Parish.
Whether Parish's songwriting is influenced by Harvey's go-for-broke style is debatable, but what is certain is that her sensibilities take over these songs so completely that--for better or worse--this feels like another PJ Harvey release. It is for the better because Harvey and Parish have duplicated the musical intricacies of To Bring You My Love, rendering an album of songs both complex and catchy. However, perhaps because Harvey feels liberated by having a collaborator, some of her peculiarities come across more readily without the discipline evident on her own records. "City of No Sun" is textbook early PJ, with heavily strummed guitars and screeching caterwaul vocals, but it doesn't show us anything new. "Taut" will give Harvey's detractors more ammunition for their charges that she's got more bile than bright ideas.
What's made her so exciting is that she's been able to negotiate the edge-of-the-cliff histrionics while still making enrapturing music; Dance Hall at Louse Point mostly maintains that balancing act, but the album's weakest moments demonstrate how Harvey can go wrong artistically.
Just like To Bring You My Love, the new disc feels like the work of individualistic people working under a common vision. The atmosphere of "Rope Bridge Crossing" and "That Was My Veil" are almost as enthralling as the music and lyrics set down by Harvey and Parish. Listening to them hog-tie Leiber and Stoller's "Is That All There Is?" and add eerie organs will convinces one that these two aren't following fads, but are instead expressing their own idiosyncratic desires.
Still, as thoroughly entertaining as this record is at its highest moments, there nevertheless exists a spirit of incompleteness to the work. It might be that since Harvey's own albums seem possessed by such a unifying thread, the lack of one here makes the album feel insufficient. What's more likely is that Parish isn't the writer Harvey is, although at times--such as "Civil War Correspondent"--he and she generate music as passionate as anything she's committed to tape.
Dance Hall at Louse Point is a curious little record. Engaging yet challenging, it demonstrates that Harvey, even when not working on all cylinders, figures to be one of our most compelling musical figures. And in Parish, she's not only found a worthy cohort but also a kindred demented spirit. B+