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Sealed Deluxe Official 180gr Vinyl Reissue
A Woman a Man Walked By arrived just a year and a half after PJ Harvey's equally difficult and brilliant White Chalk. That alone makes it notable, since the last time she released albums in such quick succession was the early to mid-'90s, around the same time of her last songwriting collaboration with John Parish, Dance Hall at Louse Point.
That album's unbridled experiments provided a sharp contrast to the subversive polish of its predecessor, To Bring You My Love; while A Woman a Man Walked By isn't quite as overt an about-face from White Chalk, the difference is still distinct. Here, Harvey and Parish (who played on and co-produced White Chalk) trade sublime, sustained eeriness for freewheeling vignettes that cover a wider range of sounds and moods than her music has in years.
They begin with "Black Hearted Love," the equivalent of Dance Hall at Louse Point's "This Was My Veil" - that is, the album's most accessible moment: guitar-heavy yet sleek, its riffs full of pregnant pauses as Harvey hones in on the one she wants, the song's sinister romance initially seems dangerously close to melodrama ("When you call out my name in rapture/I volunteer my soul for murder"), but she sings "you are my black-hearted love" so tenderly and knowingly that it transcends clich?.
Track Listings: 1. Black Hearted Love 2. Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen 3. Leaving California 4. The Chair 5. April 6. A Woman A Man Walked By / The Crow Knows Where All The Little Children Go 7. The Soldier 8. Pig Will Not 9. Passionless, Pointless 10. Cracks In The Canvas"
