Consumer Guide Album

PJ Harvey: I Inside the Old Year Dying [Partisan, 2023]
Based on Orlam, the 54-year-old Harvey's book-length poem in the English of the southern county of Dorsetshire, where "wordle" means world and "wildermist" means steam on a window, this album is pure musical switcheroo. With sweetness aforethought, Harvey's piping soprano departs radically from the blues-soaked shout that was her trademark from 1993's Rid of Me to 2000's Stories From the City, Stories from the Sea and beyond. I can imagine working out its meanings sometime. But even in my pitiful ignorance I can attest that while the music here is pretty quiet, its principles stand firm enough to make me hope I'll someday grok what the words boil down to. B+