Onstage, Polly Jean Harvey looks like she drifted in from another world. Dressed in all white, each of her movements is just as quiet, deliberate and precise as the next. Behind her, shadows dance.

25 years after its release, John Freeman looks back at Polly Jean Harvey’s torrid and brilliant second album, Rid Of Me, a slate-cleaning ball of fury that would shock and awe in equal measure If ...