PJ Harvey
          Stories From the City, Stories From  the Sea
                  Label: Island
                  Genre: Alternative
                  File Under: Lovin' ain't easy
                  Rating: 86
 

                  From the title on down, PJ Harvey's
                  Stories From the City, Stories From the
                  Sea seems like it's coming from two
                  different directions. The "city" of the title is
                  New York, where Harvey spent six months
                  soaking up the night life and writing part of
                  the album — presumably the songs that
                  name-check locations such as the Empire State Building, Little
                  Italy, Chinatown, and Brooklyn. The "sea" refers to Harvey's tiny
                  coastal hometown in Dorset, England, and appropriately, some of
                  the tunes seem almost tidal, rising and falling in intensity and
                  offering a distant, contemplative spin on the action taking place
                  elsewhere on the album.

                  Stories isn't a concept album, per se, but its central conceit seems
                  to be a love affair that's in full bloom — in the rapturous opener, "Big
                  Exit," it is such a powerful force that it can overcome the violence
                  and suffering inherent in America ("Too many cops/ Too many
                  guns") to the point where Harvey exults, "I'm immortal/ When I'm
                  with you." As the album progresses, though, the relationship
                  founders ("This Mess We're In," sung mostly by Radiohead's Thom
                  Yorke, this year's ubiquitous alt-rock guest vocalist) and smashes
                  on the furious rocker "Kamikazi." Songs like the dark, meditative
                  "Beautiful Feeling" and "Float," meanwhile, view love as if from afar
                  and offer commentary as it dissolves.

                  Too bad for the unhappy ending, but if nothing else, Stories can be
                  seen as something of a mature move for Harvey, whose previous
                  works Dry and To Bring You My Love dealt in obsession and raw
                  sex, while her 1998 album asked (albeit somewhat distantly) the
                  musical question Is This Desire?

                  By album's end, Harvey seems willing to resort to the merely
                  physical — "I can't believe life is so complex/ When I just want to sit
                  here and watch you undress," she sings on "This Is Love." On
                  "Float," however, both sides of the love-lust argument seem to slip
                  away, as she vows to simply "take life as it comes."

                  That's a pretty extraordinary claim coming from someone as intense
                  and assertive as Harvey. Either way, Stories From the City, Stories
                  From the Sea has to rank as a work more musically accessible than
                  her early material and more emotionally direct than her later stuff.
                  It's an intriguing song cycle that stands up to — and in fact,
                  demands — repeated listenings. — Daniel Durchholz