A Woman a Man Walked By, PJ Harvey’s latest offering, comes just 18 months after her last collaboration with John Parish, White Chalk. While many found White Chalk one of Harvey’s least accessible albums in over a decade, those who persevered were rewarded by its eerie, angst-ridden and hypnotic musical experience.

Parts of A Woman A Man Walked By fall into the same category of free-form experimentalism and intentionally uncommercial listening, and yet the album still has the electric guitar and quintessential snarling tortured voice of anguish listeners have come to expect of Harvey.

Black Hearted Lover is easily the most recognisably “PJ Harvey” track on the album. In fact the song sounds like it could be off one of her previous works Uh Huh Her or To Bring My Love. It is composed of simple and polished heavy guitar riffs accompanied by PJ Harvey’s hallmark deep and edgy vocals. One could almost view this track as an invitation to the listener to delve deeper into her album. And surely, its also an invitation into the darkness and sorrow of Harvey’s mental scape – “I’d like to take you to a place I know, My black hearted”.

For each song Parish provides a unique and varied backdrop for Harvey’s vocal and lyrical styles. Whether this be the eerie organ behind the cracked high pitched April or the building rattling train-track guitar and drums behind the caustic and possessed A Woman A Man Walked By. Even the most hardy listener can’t help being slightly unnerved as Harvey growls a staccato “ha-ha-hermaphroditeee, he’s looking likely”. This song is a highlight of the album, delivered with guttural and theatrical scorn by Harvey.

On Leaving California Parish provides simple almost sweet guitar, with haunting reverb. And Harvey once more sings in White Chalk style, strained high, bordering on cries of anguish at times. The album swings between distinct styles and vocal experiments by Harvey.

More noticeable than anything is the many moods of this album; for every scathing Pig Will Not there is a haunting and beautiful Soldier. This leaves the listener regrettably with a somewhat uneven experience. A true PJ Harvey fan will enjoy dissecting and savouring piece by piece this hybrid addition to her work. Unfortunately, for those uninitiated the album may simply come off as disjointed and distracted in its morose musings – somewhat like one might imagine the inner workings of PJ Harvey’s mind.

A Woman A Man Walked By is out now through Universal.