The Hope Six Demolition Project is an extremely suggestive album. It is almost as suggestive as the author herself. Just when I thought that PJ Harvey could not top Let England Shake, she decided to gamble with her 9th studio album. All of us voyeurs of creative process were thrilled when she had her performance exhibition Recording In Progress in British Somerset House in September last year. She offered her impressions from the journey Kosovo-Afghanistan-Washington and used it as a poetic material. PJ Harvey even released a poem book The Hollow of the Hand. To put it simply – she offered extra and induced many political implications.
PJ travels the world to feel the circle of life on the streets of various countries and cultures. It inspired her to grow and learn more. Being intellectually driven, she gave us a lesson from geopolitics and capitalism.
Many say Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea was her best album. I would say that The Hope Six Demolition Project brings us what PJ does best – ironically avoiding to explain herself. She is always hiding behind the plurality of meaning. What she created is much more complex than the most of the critics expected her to create. Formally, it is another innovative rock experiment. Poetically, it is a question of the position the art has in today’s society.
Propaganda and spectacle supported by dominant saxophone and noisy guitar distortions did not overshadow conventional beauty of On Battleship Hill and Bitter Branches from her last album. On the other hand, The Hope Six Demolition Project is a reinvention of PJ’s discography. It combines blues, punk, garage rock, psychedelic, jazz and dynamic of gospel.
Opening track The Community of Hope has a memorable finishing line They’re gonna put a Walmart in here. It is followed by threatening The Ministry Of Defense. This is how the world will end.
A Line In The Sand, River Anacostia, The Orange Monkey and Dollar, Dollar are perfect examples of contrasts. Only one thing is consistent – PJ Harvey’s lamentation. Near the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln, Medicinals and The Wheel offer powerful riffs. My favorite track is The Ministry of Social Affairs.
Can artist make any change in the world? The Hope Six Demolition Project serves as a reaction to events from everyday life shaped into peculiar impressions, symbols and unanswered questions. PJ Harvey does not give you a programmed solution. She offers you a personal answer to the crisis of the modern world.
