By the time she released her sixth solo album — Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea — Polly Jean Harvey had pretty much stretched her sound in every direction it could logically go.

1992’s Dry was her fully formed indie-encapsulating debut; 1993’s Rid of Me her Steve Albini-produced exploration of caterwauling noise; 4-Track Demos her raw, immediate bedroom snapshot; 1995’s To Bring You My Love her confident, theatrical blues masterstroke; 1998’s Is This Desire? her electronica-dabbling incorporation of folk-rock touches. What was left but to streamline her sound, spruce up the recording studio and record a steamy slab of hook-driven pop-rock?

Don’t take that as criticism. Quite the opposite. Recording Stories, Harvey seemed to realize something that eluded many of her alternative generation peers: Rawness, ugliness and aggression are all artistic crutches every bit as lazy and retrograde over time as a dedication to beauty, craft and high production values.

Since that 2000 peak, though, Harvey has floundered. 2004’s Uh Huh Her was the first Harvey disc to lack real vision, and 2007’s White Chalk sounded more like an experiment (let’s try the piano!) than as a fruitful, vital addition to Harvey’s discography. Not that they’re bad albums by any means: Harvey fans can find plenty to love on both LPs. But did they demand your attention the way her video for “Down By the Water” did? No way.

In perhaps another sign that maybe Harvey doesn’t know what to do next, she decided to reunite with John Parish, with whom she crafted a full-length disc in 1996. The result: A Woman a Man Walked By, a new 10-track collaborative release that again runs the gamut of established Harvey sounds without offering a coherent new direction.

If that sounds harsh, that may just be the burden Harvey carries with her as one of the most talented artists to emerge in the past two decades, and it probably undersells some of the actual music to be found on A Woman. ”April” finds Harvey aping the quivering delivery of Joanna Newsom, but the track builds to a dramatic finish that seems outside Newsom’s range. Opening track and first single “Black Hearted Love” (video above) is another entry in the singer’s songbook of death ‘n’ love odes. “Pig Will Not” hearkens back to the artist’s scream-rock Rid of Me days.

Maybe middling reviews are simply the fate of all artists who have as rich a back catalogue as Harvey, and if it seems unfair to expect an artist to amaze us not once or twice, but seven or eight times, it probably is. (Island)