There are two kinds of "heavy." One is like that which drops from the black mouths of Megadeath, Metallica, and other long-hairs. It's high-volume, full of sound and fury. The other type is personified by acts like Jandek and Alexander "Skip" Spence -- low, low, low on volume but clouded over with fear, minor chords, dissonance, despair, and drama. This type of heavy might actually even be more weighty than anything Megadeath or Metallica could ever conjure from their Marshall stacks. Its density is emotional rather than physical, and we all know that once the mind is conquered the body follows.

This isn't to say that Polly Jean Harvey's music is not physically heavy. 'Cause it is, fuzzy riffs, clangy beats, and all. It's just that her emotional intensity, coupled with large scuzzy guitars and drums, is what separates her from other girls-with-guitars (save Sleater-Kinney, of course) and most solo heavy art-rock casualties (save Evan Dando).

Harvey was an integral part of early-'90s post-grunge (The Lemonheads, Juliana Hatfield, The Pixies), a sound that could be either poppy or arty. Her brand hasn't changed much since then. Consider Uh Huh Her, her seventh full-length: Its essence of simple instrumentation and arrangements smacks of early-'90s post-minimalism.

Produced and performed by multi-instrumentalist Harvey with Rob Ellis on drums, the record is pristinely apocalyptic. Acoustic, breathy ballads juxtaposed with slow, lo-fi electric dirges make for a scary trip. The most chill-inducing part is the record's beginning. The first track, "The Life and Death of Mr. Badmouth," is hellishly dark in its re-imagining of an Alex Katz painting in which shadowy lovers' smoke-filled eyes never meet, their body language far apart. The song begins with a simple, lumbering chord progression on bottom-heavy, scorched-earth guitar. Then a snare drum. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Then everything quiets down for Harvey to sing, in time and timbre with the main melody. "Baby / You got a / Got a bad, bad mouth / Everything / Poison coming out, coming out ... Someone ought to / Rinse it out with soap / Wash it out, wash it out, wash it out." A high whine in the background and gurgling synth then deliver the melody to the chorus. Then the song -- and the rest of the disc -- just gets heavier and heavier.

Emotionally, that is.