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PJ HARVEY, DRY, 180 GRAM BLACK VINYL LP RECORD

One Of TAS’ Ten Best Vinyl Reissues of 2020!

Dry is PJ Harvey’s stark, seminal 1992 debut album … a fully-formed call-to-arms! Features “Dress” and “Sheela-Na-Gig”. Back in print, the LP is pressed on 180-gram vinyl.

Borrowing its primitive attack from post-punk guitar rock and its form from the blues, Dry is a forceful collection of brutally emotional songs, highlighted by Harvey’s deft lyricism and startling voice, as well as her trio’s muscular sound. Her vocals are perfectly complemented by the trio’s ferocious pounding, which makes even the slow ballads sound like exercises in controlled fury. And that’s the key to Dry: the songs, which are often surprisingly catchy — “Dress” and “Sheela-Na-Gig” both have strong hooks — are as muscular and forceful as the band’s delivery, making the album a vibrant and fully realized debut.

On her debut, Polly Jean Harvey matched Patti Smith’s incandescence with Bessie Smith’s lasciviousness, outplayed everyone on the British indie circuit, and became an instant star.

28 years after the fact, the music still has the power to startle and electrify. While the rhythm section of drummer Rob Ellis and Steve Vaughn cartwheel and trundle and wrestle, Harvey holds firm with choppy downward strums and a voice that could crack concrete. Remastered with care by original co-producer Head, Dry is hackles raising, mouth watering post-punk perfection.