"Let England Shake leaves behind the haunted psycho-geography of Harvey's native Dorset, rendered so exquisitely on her last album, White Chalk, and deploys her to an entirely new arena. Over the course of a dozen songs, she examines war, its human cost and her beloved England's role as aggressor and saviour, haven and purgatory ... There is always a risk that an album full of war poetry might feel like a downer. But the payload of grief on Let England Shake is made infinitely more bearable by music that really shakes, too".