'War songwriter' PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey aims to be a "war songwriter".

The 'Let England Shake' singer's latest album deals with many different aspects of war through its lyrics, which required a great deal of research into historical conflicts, as well as listening to songs which conveyed grand themes in an understandable way, and PJ - short for Polly Jean - said she did so for a specific purpose.

She told NME magazine: "My whole proviso for the viewpoint of this album came about from wondering if there was such a post as Official War Song Correspondent. Because I know there are war poets and war artists, and I thought, 'well, where are the was songwriters?'"

Polly added that while she is English, she didn't want to focus her attentions on her home nation or her lifetime, and tried to include a series of different scenarios when planning the album, but also show how they are all intrinsically linked.

Describing some of the tracks, she added: "A song like 'Written On The Forehead' is very much about modern day Iraq. 'Bitter Branches', again I feel, inhabits a different era, maybe in Russia, a different world. 'In The Dark Places', that might be Bosnia. You don't know where it is. I was wanting to show the way that history repeats itself, really, and so in some ways it doesn't matter what time it was, because the endless cycle goes on and on and on."

The album 'Let England Shake' is released on February 14.