People always seem to want that little bit extra from P. J. Harvey. Her lyrics, like those of the renascent Morrissey, are scrutinised intensely for clues to her doggedly protected private life, especially her rela- tionship history. And, like Mozza, she, too, is an interviewer’s nightmare; guarded and contemptuous of those who try to peel back the skin to reveal the raw flesh beneath.

Such an approach merely feeds the desire to know more about one of our great rock stars. Perhaps, however, those desperate for titbits about her former boyfriend Nick Cave, or her rumoured current beau, the film-maker Vincent Gallo, should accept that Peej’s lyrics are not necessarily lifted from her diaries.

It’s not uncommon for songwriters to blend personal experience with dollops of observation and pure fiction. They are writers, after all. And Polly Jean Harvey, Dorset farmgirl, bruised femme fatale, Gothic shrieker and lovelorn, doe-eyed glamour-puss, is one of the best; a compelling cartographer of the shadows and gloaming of the human heart.

Uh Huh Her, a typically teasing Harvey title, is her seventh album and, without question, her finest since the scorching Rid of Me, released in 1993. For starters, it very pleasingly scours clean the 6in-thick slather of lush production that clogged the pores of her last album, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, in 2000.

Uh Huh Her was recorded on eight-track and, consequently, even the spare beauty of a song such as The Slow Drug is rendered urgent and passionate — you can hear Harvey’s lips part and her voice crack. The most obvious throwback to her unrefined blues soul is the caustic Who the F***?, a fierce blast of blazing guitar, pummelling drums and a lot of swearing.

Now that the blues have become a touchstone for bands such as the White Stripes, it’s interesting to note that Harvey, whose first album Dry was released in 1992, has long doused her music in the dark stuff. And her blues are still scarier and sexier than anyone else’s. Just take the album opener, The Life and Death of Mr Badmouth, a brooding slab of betrayal, vitriol and vengeance and the line, “Baby, you’ve got a bad, bad mouth/ Everything poison coming out/ Cheating, lying since the day you were born/ Someone ought to rinse it out with soap/ Wash it out, wash it out, wash it out”, which is sung sweetly but drips with black menace.

At 14 tracks Uh Huh Her may be three songs overweight, but you get the feeling that Polly Jean had no choice in the matter — these predominantly magnificent songs just had to be written and recorded.

Uh Huh Her is released on Island on Monday

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