Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	80/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
The A.V. Club	A−
Entertainment Weekly	C
The Guardian
Mojo
NME	7/10
Pitchfork Media	6.8/10
Q
Rolling Stone
Spin

White Chalk is the seventh studio album by English singer-songwriter and musician PJ Harvey, released on 24 September 2007 on Island Records.

Work on the album started in 2006, with producer Flood and John Parish, who also worked on her To Bring You My Love and Is This Desire? albums. Other collaborators on White Chalk are Eric Drew Feldman and Jim White from Dirty Three.

The first single to be released from White Chalk was "When Under Ether" on 17 September 2007 on digital download and 7" vinyl. A second single, "The Piano," was released on 26 November 2007. A third, "The Devil," was released on 7", download, and CD formats in March 2008.

The previous album Uh Huh Her had a raw sound but for this record White Chalk, Rolling Stone 's magazine noted that Harvey "delved further into a Goth-like vibe in the much quieter, haunting, piano-based music". For this album she gave up the traditional three-piece sound guitar/bass/drums and recorded a set of songs for piano, despite her lack of expertise on the instrument. In an interview in The Wire she explained "the great thing about learning a new instrument from scratch is that it [...] liberates your imagination."

Vocally, she sang in a much higher register than usual, at a pitch outside her normal range and "howled about being possessed by demon lovers and ghosts". Lyrically, Harvey continued with the dark, moody themes typical of much of her music.

White Chalk received generally positive reviews and has a score of 80 out of 100 on Metacritic.The Observer gave the album 5 stars out of 5, while Robert Christgau picked out one song from the album, "When Under Ether", as a "choice cut" ().

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