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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
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White Chalk
by PJ Harvey
The British singer's latest album was produced by John Parrish and Flood.
| LABEL: |
Island |
| RELEASE DATE: |
25 September 2007 |
| DISCS: |
1 disc |
| GENRE(S): |
Rock, Alternative |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Observer Music Monthly
Nothing Harvey has done in the past, however, can prepare you for her eighth album, White Chalk, whose cover is as singular as the tunes therein.
100
The Phoenix
White Chalk is more chamber music, and a dark chamber at that. The only flickers of light come from Harvey’s voice: high, airy, and imperiled as she weaves her echo-coated and darkly soulful spell till the story’s bleak finale.
100
Slant Magazine
White Chalk, wholly self-contained and uncompromised, is a work of literary depth and complexity.
91
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Harvey has one of the most forceful voices around, but here she relies on her silk-thin upper register to create a delicate album that skates across despair without ever quite sinking into it.
90
musicOMH.com
Constantly brilliant. White Chalk is an amazing album, racked with beauty, stricken with fragility and haunted with something otherworldly.
90
Hot Press
Beautiful, arcane, unsettling--and that's only the cover. White Chalk isn't so much a record, as a great effort at dragging you into another world.
84
cokemachineglow
I can think of nothing more liberating than to dive into its dark waters.
84
Filter
But without a doubt the change on White Chalk is steps beyond those we have seen from PJ in the past, which makes one question her intent.
80
The Guardian
The austerity of Harvey's self-imposed constraints is uncompromising but rewarding; she forces herself out of her comfort zone, and takes the listener with her.
80
No Ripcord
Harvey’s audio experiments are celebrated with the release of each new album. But I wonder what she would do without any limitations.
80
The Wire
Harvey's new strategy has been successful although White Chalk might be something of a curio, it's certainly her most haunting work. [Oct 2007, p.60]
80
Q Magazine
It's so alluring you have no choice but to follow. [Oct 2007, p.98]
80
Boston Globe
The music is positively spectral, as if she's set up her sound board in the spaces where her absent lover, unborn child, and grandmother used to be.
80
Dot Music
This yet again reveals PJ Harvey to be one of the UK's greatest contemporary songwriters.
80
Village Voice
As usual, the excellent mix--opaque but sunlit--helps; as usual, we eagerly await her next album.
80
Dusted Magazine
White Chalk shifts between comforting melancholy and supremely discomforting performativity with preternatural ease.
80
All Music Guide
It rivals "Dance Hall at Louse Point" for its willingness to challenge listeners, but it's far removed from "Uh Huh Her," which was arguably more listenable but a lot less remarkable. In fact, this may be Harvey's most undiluted album yet.
80
Billboard
Harvey's mostly bare arrangements, stark vocal delivery and razor-sharp lyrics add up to a poignant, haunting rumination on what makes--and breaks--a life
80
Sputnikmusic
There's not a weak track here, and on close inspection each song could be singled out as a highlight if debased from the album.
80
Uncut
An album of lonely beauty and piercing sorrow, White Chalk is P.J. Harvey back at the peak of her considerable powers.
80
BBC collective
Even by her own unsettling standards, however, her seventh album is disturbing, a collection of smudged and spectral laments that appear to have been written before the invention of penicillin.
80
Rolling Stone
It's stronger and more assertive than 2004's "Uh Huh Her."
80
Delusions of Adequacy
A poignant and powerful collection.
80
Mojo
It's a brave and brilliant refocusing of her energies, virtually a rebirth. [Oct 2007, p.91]
80
Drowned In Sound
With its bones on show and chest wide open, White Chalk may not be the greatest album of all time, it may not be to everyone's tastes, and it may not even be Polly’s finest. But let it and it'll haunt you.
75
Prefix Magazine
This album will still take away the breath you aren't holding: It's at once bleak, aching, and insidiously beautiful.
70
Spin
There's a coiled power here equal to Harvey's more muscular stuff. [Oct 2007, p.95]
70
New Musical Express
Frustratingly, though, White Chalk isn't consistent enough to be a classic PJ album, and if you're new to her music, this isn't the ideal place to start.
70
PopMatters
White Chalk is as penetrating as the loudest, fiercest moments on previous albums, but less from moments of aggression than from a chilling atmosphere of restrained frenzy.
70
Tiny Mix Tapes
Polly has always done well to play outside her comfort zone, and in doing so on this album, she crafts a reminder more effective than her return-to-form attempt on "Uh Huh Her."
70
Under The Radar
The album will puzzle some fans with its uncharacteristic sound, but it will surely intrigue many more. [Fall 2007, p.73]
68
Pitchfork
On the right day, at the right time, the album's powerfully claustrophobic intimacy is more palatable; on the wrong day, at the wrong time, in the wrong frame of mind, White Chalk may be the longest half-hour in the world.
67
Austin Chronicle
They're still about the classic Harvey tropes of repression and longing, but Chalk's fixated on death and madness, at times feeling claustrophobic in its emptiness.
60
Paste Magazine
Put in context, White Chalk serves her purposes, much as Bruce Springsteen’s "Nebraska" served his. On initial listen, the album is not a step forward, nor is it a step back, but rather a lateral move intended to leave breathing room for her next attack.
60
Blender
Refining the spare sound of her last studio album "Uh Huh Her," she herein presents an 11-part song cycle about loss, longing and wandering bereft through the moors. [Oct 2007, p.108]
58
Stylus Magazine
Over the course of eleven songs of grim predestination, virtually no modernizing or even identifying signposts are allowed to disturb the terrain.
50
Entertainment Weekly
On the largely piano-based White Chalk, she retreats into an odd little-girl-lost persona, singing almost entirely in a tremulous higher key that strangles the most powerful instrument in her arsenal: that voice.
20
NOW Magazine
The painful White Chalk is either a studio experiment gone horribly wrong or a crafty bit of career self-sabotage by a sensitive artist who'd rather make sculptures in the desert than play pop star.
The average user rating for this album is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 59 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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