MINNEAPOLIS--"Polly asks that you please refrain from smoking during the performance," read the signs taped around the Fine Line Music Cafe, a slick, midsize club in downtown Minneapolis. Perhaps Polly Jean Harvey didn't want to aggravate the sniffles for which she apologized, or perhaps she didn't want the acrid air to exhaust her voice, but regardless, the crowd that packed the club on Monday night (12/4) didn’t need a nicotine buzz. The power of Harvey’s voice was electrifying enough.

An elegant figure swathed in a backless black sheath, Harvey looked more London "it" girl than the hot-wired "50 Ft. Queenie" of yore as she ran a quartet of backing musicians through a 70-minute set culled mostly from her latest album, "Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea." She hardly spoke a word, save for a few polite "thank you"s between songs, but effortlessly delivered gut-socking messages.

Not that Harvey was frozen in the spotlight, mind you. She stalked the stage and tossed her hips with abandon, cooler than your average pop star. "You came all this way / No hair out of place" she sang during a forceful reading of "Dry" from 1993’s "Rid of Me," a lyric that could have summarized her performance. "This Is Love," "Kamikaze" and "Send His Love to Me" from "Stories," and "Angelene" off 1998’s "Is This Desire," stood out as richly delivered tales of a world-weary bohemian. For an encore, she gracefully tamed her alt-rock classic "Sheela-Na-Gig."

Harvey should teach soul lessons to the feisty upstarts and Lilith Fair leftovers that have passed her up the charts over the past few years--few of them can manage the honesty of this elusive Brit. And whereas her early work was cracklingly brutal and often painful to listen to, her later work--especially "Desire" and "Stories"--finds Harvey gleaning her edge with soul that emanates twice as much heat.

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