Today the Uncut Music Award judges discuss the album that turned out to be their winner; PJ Harvey's "Let England Shake". Allan Jones: This is probably one of the year’s best reviewed records, it’s already won the Mercury Prize, and has emerged has both a career best and a landmark record. It’s ambitious in terms of its scope, very poetic, it’s a meditation on England and its role in the world, and PJ’s own role in England. It brilliantly uses ancient conflicts to illuminate current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iran, via songs involving the battle of Gallipoli. I think it’s a brave and dramatic record. Mark Cooper: For me, she’s been the best British artist of the last 20 years; a brilliantly inventive and self-demanding artist. Her mode of writing is really impressive on this. I was always disappointed that she didn’t become a big rock star around the time of To Bring You My Love like she was shaping up to be, but I think that would have probably killed her. I think she’s reinvented a way of writing, in a similar way to how Tom Waits reinvented a way of writing that works for him. It’s like, to me, she found a war memorial somewhere in Dorset and read the list of names and transposed herself inside the price of those journeys. You can feel the weight of British history in these songs, which is an incredibly powerful thing to channel, and I really admire that. I think it’s a brilliant record, but having said that I think there’s a couple of really stinker songs on it. I don’t really go through it listing them, that would be annoying, because ultimately it doesn’t detract from the record’s genius for me. But there are couple of songs that don’t quite stand alongside the incredibly high quality of 90 per cent of the record, and 90 per cent of this record is a masterpiece. I know I sound really mean and snotty, it’s just that I have really high standards for her because she has such high standards for herself. Phil Manzanera: I think she ticks all the boxes in terms of an artist with a brain who likes challenges. I think it’s telling that the lyrics are quite short on every single track, she’s distilled it down. You look at some artists and there are pages and pages of words to say what they want to say, but she does it in a very pithy sort of way, which is great. What I also like is that there seems to be more melody than I’ve heard on a few of her albums. The musical context is great, John Parrish and the other people working with her resist the temptation to overdub too much, it’s very stark. It’s the PJ album I love the best. Tony Wadsworth: In the past I’ve always wanted to like her more than I did. I knew her records were really good, but why didn’t I want to play them more than three or four times and really fall in love with them? I’ve not been able to do that with any of them until this one. It really got to me emotionally, all the issues about Englishness, loss of Empire, the futility of war. It reminded me, lyrically, of The Good, The Bad & The Queen album - musically as well, because that was quite sparse. So, yes, I could relate this emotionally more than any of her other stuff. Linda Thompson: I loved it, I was impressed that a woman could go through a whole album and not mention some stupid bloke, except a stupid dead bloke. I love anything without hooks and choruses, that’s bliss for me, and these songs are beautifully played – beautifully underplayed. Stewart Lee: I like the fact that she’s not really in it, it’s quite an ego-less record. I think the instrumentation’s really interesting, it’s different to most things you’d expect to see covered in Uncut. I think the lyrics are interesting, they do a really good job. Sometimes songwriters get praised for using complicated language and showing you their vocabulary, but a lyric is not the same as a poem, and it’s not the same as prose. But the words here do the job they’re supposed to do, and if they do seem a little bit clichéd in places, a bit like on the Gillian Welch record, it’s because they have a deliberate relationship with existing poetry or folk song or hymns. The subject matter is written about really well without being preachy or dogmatic or necessarily taking a position, she’s not there as an authorial voice. I’ve always been impressed by her, but this the first of her records that has really stopped me in my tracks, that made me feel emotions I was really surprised by. I like the use of the samples, where they appear to be off the beat, it’s quite jarring in places. It’s interesting where the sounds sit in the mix, it’s sort of the opposite of the Fleet Foxes album in the way, they take you by surprise. Nick Stewart: I need to declare a few interests here. Firstly, I was in the army so I can absolutely relate to what she’s singing about. Secondly, her manager also oversees someone I work with, but for my money this is the outstanding album on this list. I think it’s a work of absolute genius. I went to see her at the Royal Albert Hall, the record was beautifully reproduced and it was a mesmeric evening. I think this is a stone cold classic, I can understand why it won the Mercury Prize. An absolute work of genius.

In today's transcript, the judges debate the second album by former Uncut Music Award winners, Fleet Foxes. Allan Jones: Their first record was, of course, the winner of the first Uncut Music Award. It gave them a mountainous task in how to match it, it’s taken them three years, but I think anything they did as a follow-up was going to be judged against that debut, and maybe overshadowed by it. That seems to be the opinion of some people, but personally I thought it was an even better record; much more personal, much more emotionally engaging than the debut, without surrendering any of the glorious melodic virtues, the harmonies. Just a terrific record, I thought. Stewart, did you like it? Stewart Lee: Not really, but I didn’t like the first one much either. I feel that there must be something wrong with me, I feel that I can’t be hearing it right. There’s no mess in it, there’s no surprises in it, it all seems so perfectly positioned. I feel like I want something else to happen in it that’s not there, it all seems to lie there just so. I know it takes a lot of work to get a record to sound like that, but in the Bill Callahan record and the Josh T Pearson record the guitars do things you wouldn’t expect quite a lot, the rhythm breaks down and stuff happens, but this to me sounds more like chamber music that’s achieved a point of perfection and will play out the same way every time. Allan Jones: Robin [Pecknold] went back to the album after it was finished and did a lot of re-recording, and he’s admitted himself that he became obsessed with the idea of how it should sound. Nick Stewart: I approached this from a couple of directions. If there hadn’t been the first album, how would you view this one? It’s the traditional A&R man’s problem, in that you have 18, 20 years to make the first album and 18 months to make the second. There are a couple of outstanding tunes here, “Lorelei” is quite a magical song. There are quite a lot of sophomore albums aren’t quite as good as the first one; I don’t think this is as good as their first album, I don’t think it sounds as fresh, even though all the mannerisms that you would associate with them are in there. Having said that, “Lorelei” is an exceptional piece of music, and so is the title track, but for my money, as a whole it’s not quite as good as the first album. There are no stylistic changes at all, it’s been made in exactly the same way, but just not as good. They don’t seem to have moved on at all. It’s a very good record, but there doesn’t seem to have been any progression. Mark Cooper: I’m kind of with Stewart on this. I find them a slightly hard band to warm to, they’re easy to admire but hard to love. They’re quite an architectural band, if that’s the right word, I find them quite formal in design. I understand it’s a more personal record than the last, but it doesn’t really hit home with me, all I can hear is the architecture. It’s been most brilliantly achieved, sonically, so I admire them for that, probably more so on this record than the last. I guess it has the same problem as the Bon Iver record, in that it’s following such a startling debut. I don’t know if they have to move on, sometimes people create such a landscape on their first record that all they can do is deepen that landscape. It probably does deepen it, but I don’t think it surprises us. The first record felt so different to everything else, this doesn’t. Phil Manzanera: I didn’t like it as much as their first one. I bought this on iTunes when it came out, and I must have downloaded the songs in the wrong order, because when I heard them in this order, on the actual disc, I was really disappointed! The way I first heard it, they started with an instrumental and I thought “How incredibly brave of them!”. Tony Wadsworth: That was the surprise some of us were looking for! Phil Manzanera: When I finally heard it in the sequence they intended, starting with “Montezuma”, I just didn’t like it as much as before. It just shows you that the order of the songs can be so incredibly important, you could actually end up with a different album. Stewart Lee: My mum taped a Randy Crawford album at the wrong speed once, and drove around listening to the cassette for about three years before I pointed out her mistake. She didn’t like it the way it was supposed to sound. Phil Manzanera: I understand this is a much more personal album for Robin, and seems to be centred around him and the others doing backing vocals, whereas the first record sounded much more uniformed. I think they made a mistake there, because I think there’s a lot more to get out of the band than appears here. Maybe that’s what’s needed to take them to the next level, get the band more involved. Tony Wadsworth: It must be really hard for them, because the first album did sound really fresh, it was different from anything else that was around at the time, and it was pretty fully formed stylistically as well. Then you’ve got to work out where you go to with Album Two – do you make a radical departure, or do you consolidate? I think what they’ve gone for is consolidation, it doesn’t feel like it’s progressed because the style was already more or less there on the first one. Without taking a real left turn, which I wish they had done, then there isn’t too much more they can do with that sound. Nick Stewart: Yes, it’s like what Mark said about their architecture, they’ve got trapped in this rather ornate building. Tony Wadsworth: It almost feels like Part Two of the first album. It sounds beautiful, you’ve still got all those Crosby, Stills & Nash elements in there, but while there are two or three really amazing tunes on the first album, I don’t think there are here. The other thing is that I find it really difficult to relate to their lyrics, they’re so obtuse. I don’t really know what he’s singing about. Nick Stewart: If you look at how the lyrics are reproduced in the packaging it’s absurd, it’s almost as if they don’t want you to read them. Sometimes you can read white-on-black, but you can’t really read this, can you? Stewart Lee: It seems that everyone’s finding really odd reasons to dislike this record – the songs are in the wrong order, the typeface is no good! Maybe it’s the fact that you don’t like it means you more easily notice these other things, like the font’s wrong! Tony Wadsworth: I think it’s perfectly good, but just not as exciting as when I heard the first album. It does feel like it’s treading water, which is a terrible thing to say when you consider they’ve spent three years making it. I feel for them, for where they’re at and the pressure on them after the success of the first album, so maybe they’ll be more relaxed when it comes to making the next album. Linda Thompson: I feel the same way, I didn’t like it as much as the first one. I dunno, some of their harmonies are so tight; I mean, never mind Crosby, Stills & Nash, this actually sounds Gregorian in places, and I fucking hate Gregorian. Allan Jones: I think that’s what you said about the first album, Linda. Linda Thompson: Yes, and I still feel the same! Overall, I liked it but not as much as their first, and I feel like I’m damning it with faint praise. It’s obvious that they worked incredibly hard on it, but I’ve not given much thought to them changing musical direction of moving it on, because this is what they do, and they’re brilliant at it. I don’t know, it’s not as if they would suddenly do a salsa record or something. Mark Cooper: I do think it underlines how hard it is if you’ve had a successful first record these days. So few people follow up a successful debut record with something that sells as well, so it’s more interesting in some ways to see Gillian Welch, who has three or four previous records, or PJ Harvey, who’s been around 20 years, on this list. Linda Thompson: I think we’ve all gone for the punter’s approach with this one, that lowest common denominator thing of not thinking it’s as good as the first record. That’s a shame, maybe, but it’s the way a lot of people will be thinking. Nick Stewart: Parts of it, “Lorelei” in particular, are better than the first one. But there’s often a thought of “if it’s not broke, don’t try to fix it”. But I think you do have to keep shifting, keep moving forward. Phil Manzanera: You have to be a bit braver, but the politics involved makes it complicated as to how brave you can be. If you come up with something too different to something that sold well the last time, you might not be giving the same marketing push. Tony Wadsworth: I think they’ve been left to do whatever they wanted to do. Mark Cooper: Maybe they needed someone to say “You’ve only written four brilliant songs here, why don’t you go away again and write 10”! Linda Thompson: Poor things! Writing four is pretty good, isn’t it? Mark Cooper: It’s your favourite on the list, though, isn’t it, Allan? Allan Jones: I loved it, it’s not my favourite, I don’t think. I find it much more emotionally engaging, I got really into the songs. I went to Seattle to do a cover story interview and spent a lot of time talking to Robin about it, so I listened to it in a rather different way than I did the first one. I immediately loved the first one although it took me a while to understand why I liked it so much, apart from the glorious sound of it, but I think the songs are more interesting on this one. I think they were under an enormous amount of pressure, obviously, but I think a lot of it was self-inflicted because there was very little interference in the recording process from Bella Union. They’re not the kind of label that dictates to the artist, and perhaps, as has been suggested today, they were given slightly too much freedom. Robin was double-thinking himself all the time and went back to revise tracks, to give it that extra level of polish, and I know some people think he may have polished the life out of it. But it’s a record I deeply love.

As promised, today we're starting to publish the judges' deliberations on each of this year's eight shortlisted albums for the Uncut Music Award. Beginning today with Bill Callahan's "Apocalypse". Allan Jones: This was a favourite of Danny Kelly’s, who unfortunately can’t be here today, but Linda, it’s a record that you also picked out on your shortlist. Bill, basically, is the artist formerly known as Smog, and this is his 14th studio album. It’s a quasi-concept album, very brief, seven songs. The apocalypse it refers to is kind of ill-defined, but it’s very evocative; it’s a somewhat bleak and forbidding album, but do you recall what took your fancy about it, Linda? Linda Thompson: I just liked it, I thought it was different, not very commercial, but just the kind of thing I like. I’m afraid you’ll have to move on to somebody who can find their notes! Tony Wadsworth: His voice is fantastic; I’m not very familiar with the whole of his canon, but this makes you really dive in to the lyrics. I like “America!”, I thought that was funny, but the negatives for me were that the arrangements could have been more ambitious, they’re very basic they’re not as interesting as the lyrics. The first song, “Drover”, is great, I think it’s better than anything else on the album. Phil Manzanera: “I’d never heard Bill Callahan before. Being a guitarist, the first thing that struck me was how great the playing was, it wasn’t what I was expecting from this kind of music. It’s quite eccentric, similar to the sort of thing I would play, and I loved the fact that it was sort of lo-fi, you have the contrast between this songwriter telling stories – I couldn’t quite grasp what the concept was – and the instrumentation. Allan Jones: It appears to be linked by the character who appears in the first song and re-emerges in the finale. Phil Manzanera: In places it reminded me of Kevin Ayers, or even Leonard Cohen, while “America!” reminded me of the type of humorous things Frank Zappa used to do. It got better the more times I listened to it, I was totally confused the first time, as to how the music was working with a sort of country singer on top of it. I actually thought it was pretty good, there’s not a lot about it that I disliked. Nick Stewart: I was playing Smog records for years on my radio shows, so I’m well acquainted with Bill Callahan’s music, and I would say this is easily the best record he’s made in a long time. There are elements of westerns in the music, things like Red River, and lyrically it’s good, and I’m glad it made the list. It replaced a record that I wanted on the short list, White Denim, but on balance I ended up preferring this one. I think it’s a staple album of the readership of your magazine, it was a staple album of my radio show. Stewart Lee: I think there’s a lot these sort of American troubadours now, working in character almost, and if you were to choose just one of the hard-bitten songwriters on the long list, which includes Kurt Vile and Josh T Pearson, I wouldn’t have chosen this one. I don’t think it’s the best. I think 20 years ago, when he was doing sort of cut-and-paste things without even playing the guitar he was much more interesting than this. Nick Stewart: Yes, there are records of a similar type here, such as Bon Iver or Josh T Pearson, that I prefer. I think this is a good record, though. Mark Cooper: I was just listening to this on my way here in the car, although I don’t know a lot about him. I didn’t hear a killer tune though, and you’ve got to nail a killer tune at least once or twice on a record to make you really love it. I liked his voice, I liked the lyrics, I liked the feel of the record, I liked the music, but the lack of a killer tune was a bit of a problem for me.