Bleep

It’s been a long seven years since The Hope Six Demolition Project, but PJ Harvey has finally returned with her milestone tenth album. With lyrics taken from her epic poem Orlam written in the Dorset dialect, everything on I Inside the Old Year Dying feels folkloric and shrouded in ghostly air, like dark spells unravelling. Drums beat at a measured gait, revolving in 6/4 time on ‘Autumn Term’ with gently paced evolutions, while her pastoral melisma sings “A carnivore, a flesh farewell” on ‘All Souls’, synths murmuring and guitars growling as if recorded at a sacrificial altar.