Yahoo! Music Review

Released on 07/05/07
Label: One Little Indian

Anyone who watched Newsnight Review the other week would be approaching Bjork's new album with a sense of trepidation. Following a debate on Sebastian Faulks, the esteemed panel of four all came to a startling conclusion when discussing Iceland's most famous singer. As an artist, they said, Bjork is absolutely amm-aaaaa-zing: innovative, groundbreaking, visually out there, and generally the bee's knees. Highbrow love was in the house. Musically, however, there was a problem. "Volta", was declared as 'difficult' and 'not her best work' - a slightly substandard offering, like her previous two albums, the icy "Vespertine" and the vocal-only marathon "Medulla".

How bizarre was this? For one, both the aforementioned are up there with Ms Guðmundsdóttir's greatest works - "Vespertine" in particular is nigh on faultless. And secondly, while these 'experts' could cream themselves for England over avant garde in the context of "art", when it comes to experimentalism in music they simply couldn't get their heads around it. In short, they loved everything about Bjork, except what she sounded like. They wanted "Debut" Mk II, not this...

Admittedly, some parts of "Volta" will be a "bit testy" for the coffee table crowd. With a cast list that includes Lightning Bolt, Timbaland, LFO's Mark Bell, Toumani Diabate and Konono N°1 that's to be expected. However, overall, it's probably Bjork's most succinct and inventive statement yet - a global whirlwind of sound that takes flight with "Earth Intruders"' tribal drum attack and, after stopping over at all manner of fantastical places, finally touches down with "My Juvenile", a heavenly lullaby sang in unison with Antony Heggarty.

Like The Good The Bad & The Queen, such disparity sounds good on paper, but Bjork's genius is the ability to relax her ego and meld these elements into one unifying whole (something Damon Albarn is, arguably, still to learn) and yet still retain that pure essence of Bjork-ness. Indeed, tracks like "Wanderlust" (all skittering beats, horns, aching voice), "Pneumonia" (an orchestral orgasm), and "I See Who You Are" (hark! Is that a Chinese pipa player?) could not have been made, never mind imagined, by anyone else on earth. "Hope" is based around the tale of a pregnant suicide bomber, which is surely another first.

Elsewhere, there is a return to, if not the dancefloor, then certainly a harder edge. Timbaland's "Innocence" bounces to a similar rhythm as "Big Time Sensuality" (in fact, the tune's not dissimilar either) while "Declare Independence" exhorts us to "raise your flag - higher, higher!" against a thuggish bass line. Some have labelled this lyrical crassness, but while "Volta" is not an overtly political album, it faces reality with a fantastical imagination and a true artist's eye. Bravely going where no human has been before, in Bjork's world - in our world - there is still the hope that, beyond the darkness and the pain, a little magic might yet exist.

    by Adam Webb