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"With the stunning Let England Shake, PJ Harvey won an unprecedented second Mercury Prize last night, having picked up her first for Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea in 2001. To accompany the album on its release, Seamus Murphy made a series of 12 short films - one for each track. To celebrate Harvey&amp;#039;s well-deserved victory and even-more welcome sales boost, we&amp;#039;ve got a track-by-track rundown of the record with each of those clips. 1. Let England Shake Trailed with an unforgettable performance on the Andrew Marr show in front of a rather bewildered-looking Gordon Brown, the album version is a tad less heavy on the &amp;#039;Istanbul (Not Constantinople)&amp;#039; sample, and the autoharp is filled out with an insistent drone. Lyrics-wise, we&amp;#039;re straight in at the deep-end as Harvey notes that our country is &amp;quot;weighted down with silent dead&amp;quot;.       2. The Last Living Rose A more stripped-back, alt-rock track, with its early Harvey/Pixies vibe being the perfect melancholy backdrop to some neat turns of phrase. Lyrically, Harvey picks apart notions of England and Englishness, with pained references to &amp;quot;Beautiful England&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;the Thames River, glistening like gold, hastily sold for nothing&amp;quot;.       3. The Glorious Land Back to the drone, with a repeated bugle toot that nudges you just off kilter, as the lyrics drag the US into proceedings and the war criticism goes up a notch. &amp;quot;Our land is ploughed by tanks and feet / feet marching&amp;quot;. There&amp;#039;s the question &amp;quot;How is our glorious country sown?/ Not with wheat and corn&amp;quot;. You only need recall Tony Blair&amp;#039;s stated preparedness to pay a &amp;quot;blood price&amp;quot; for an answer.      4. The Words That Maketh Murder The lead single, and a demented waltz which contrasts Harvey&amp;#039;s mid-pitched melodies with bassy backing vocals. It shuffles along intimidatingly before building to a crescendo yoinked from Eddie Cochran&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Summertime Blues&amp;#039;, with the matters referenced by Harvey getting as much help from the UN as the problems of leather-clad Eddie back in &amp;#039;58.      5. All and Everyone The tempo goes down a notch, but the feeling is no less frantic as Harvey mixes up a decidedly downbeat atmosphere and her own forceful delivery. The waves of drums, guitar and trombone sounds add to an air of trench-like claustrophobia underlined by the lyrics (&amp;quot;Death was everywhere / In the air and in the sounds&amp;quot;).      6. On Battleship Hill  Just before the midway point, Harvey recalls 2007&amp;#039;s White Chalk with a nod to that album&amp;#039;s almost-falsetto vocals. Instead of sparse piano, though, acoustic guitars chug along as the lyrics, more explicitly about the wars of the 1910s, still find resonance with more recent conflicts. They also underline our own fleeting presence despite all the blood spilled. &amp;quot;The land returns to how it has always been... cruel nature has won again.&amp;quot;      7. England  A rare moment of respite, as a much more bare sound takes over for much of the track. Harvey&amp;#039;s expressive, sometimes stop-start vocals soar over a restrained bit of acoustic strumming before the backing catches up with the rest of the album, filling in the sound with layers of drums, Mellotron and the rest before an exhausted release at the end of the love-hate ode to England.      8. In The Dark Places One of a couple of tracks more in keeping with Harvey&amp;#039;s grungier roots. Distorted-but-still-just-clean-enough guitar lines mix with twangs, strums and Harvey&amp;#039;s most straightforward vocals for perhaps the most conventional song on Let England Shake. More elaborate wordplay is cast aside for an almost brutal lyric (&amp;quot;Some of us returned/ And some of us did not&amp;quot;) which slides by almost unnoticed in the indie slow dance shuffle.      9. Bitter Branches An even rockier track, but one which re-embraces metaphor, as the themes of nature, war, life, death, humanity and loss are laid bare. &amp;quot;Bitter branches&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;damp earth&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;roots twist&amp;quot;. The inability to separate literal and metaphorical meaning, even after several listens, drags you down into the mire along with the songs&amp;#039; characters, Harvey&amp;#039;s voice a sole lifeline keeping you afloat.      10. Hanging in the Wire Guitars and drums are swapped as lead instruments for a softly pounding piano and sparse percussion for this third-person sketch of a walker traipsing over no-man&amp;#039;s land. Its gentleness belies the almost violent emptiness of the lyrics as Harvey as good as says that in war, there are never any happy endings. &amp;quot;There are no birds singing/ The white cliffs of Dover.&amp;quot; Even the wind is an out-of earshot &amp;quot;far-off symphony&amp;quot;.      11. Written on the Forehead And if all that&amp;#039;s not been enough, &amp;#039;Written on Forehead&amp;#039; comes so far from leftfield that it&amp;#039;s in another ballpark. Shimmering mechanical piano and Harvey&amp;#039;s almost matter-of-fact announcement of war and its effect on a city and its people sit far too easily with reggae sample &amp;#039;Blood &amp;amp; Fire&amp;#039;, before PJ joins in with her unsettlingly nihilistic &amp;quot;let it burn&amp;#039; incantations.      12. The Colour of the Earth Another lyric explicitly about the WWI Gallipoli Campaign in Turkey and, appropriately for the best war record in memory, a song of remembrance. Harvey&amp;#039;s collaborator John Parish kicks off the track before PJ joins in with a lament from an unnamed solider for his colleague Louis who never made it. Not for the first time on Let England Shake, the sheer sadness of the words (&amp;quot;I couldn&amp;#039;t get to him/ He&amp;#039;s still up on that hill&amp;quot;) are almost buried in the beauty of the melody.      Watch Digital Spy interview the Mercury Prize nominees at the ceremony below:  What do you think of PJ Harvey&amp;#039;s Let England Shake? Let us know in the space below. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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