Let's be blunt, this promised to be an utter shitfest. With only ten tracks, every duffer is a tenth of the album rendered purposeless. With Anthony Hegarty- dubious winner of the 2005 Mercury Prize- guest appearing on two tracks, that's potentially a fifth gone. And then there is the appearance- hey, I'll make a whole paragraph for it, of
Timbaland.
This man has seemingly put his stamp on every fucking release to appear in HMV's "Urban" sectionin the last five years with frequently narcoleptic results. And it seems here he's on three further tracks. Hmm.
Thus far, every other reviewer I've come across has generally concluded something along the lines of this album essentially sound Bjorkesque despite all this. It is, but that seems like a simpleton conclusion that wouldn't help any Bjork fan. The other observation is that Bjork has essentially returned to a pop sensibility, but this ain't accurate either; often, the a capella setup and occasional song in Icelandic on Medulla was essentially a way of a) adding further idiosyncracity and b) scaring the shit out of anyone who finds Keane to be edgy. If Vespertine had just added a few amped-up elements to the arrangements it'd also have been an easier listen. Volta may be tighter in its songwriting, but it still isn't that removed from its immediate predecessors. The inevitable few negative reviews for this album have, on the whole, missed the point. The general tone seems to, "where's the tunes?". Well, tough. No-one gets ten singles out of a Bjork album- not even the six-single Post had every tune sounding lovely and radio-friendly.
Arguably, the closest relative to Volta would have to be Homogenic, with the beats'n'strings approach effectively replaced by beats'n'brass. Lead single "Earth Intruders" is effectively a slight misnomer, but a storming one. Bjork has clearly realised that the key to any great song is a thumb piano or three, and so drafting in Konono No. 1 has proved inspired. More typical of the album is "Wanderlust", which, to be honest, gets slightly overshadowed as a result. Yet the real acid test arrives with "Dull Flame of Desire", the first song involving Mr. Hegarty.
It ain't bad, actually. And there I refer to Anthony's performance alone; it's occurred to me that understatement is actually a card he should play more often, because the song opens heavy whup-arse on "Hope There's Someone". The rise of fall of the horns (oi- no sniggering) gives it an anthemic quality- the sort of anthem played before sporting events, rather than at rock concerts. And given the length of previous songs such as "Unison", it's no surprise that the 7:30 length doesn't seem excessive.
The second half is never as immediate- apart from "Declare Independence", which shatters all illusions of a quiet, relaxing listen with the most fookin' loud synths and drum bashes going. It probably even beats the aggro of "Pluto" on Homogenic. Overall, though, there's no outright bad songs. The bad points to the whole album are generally thus "Pneumonia" stands out by not standing out- it's the only somewhat anonymous track here; "Hope", great instrumental track though it is, has a clumsy lyric over the top of it; there's a totally unnecessary remix tacked onto this UK version (why no proper song?); and the packaging must be the result of terrorists bombing an ergonomics department. Yet it's somewhat pedantic to mark an album down because of packaging. The simple truth is, it can't quite join the twin masterpieces of Homogenic and Medulla, but it fits into a mighty fine third place amongst her six albums to date.
Judgement:
>Lyrics/Songs 17
No, you can't have ten pub singalongs. But Bjork does seem to have a better grasp of English than plenty of English bands these days.
>Mood 19
A pendulum between the grand and the reserved.
>Technical 23
With the involvement of some mighty horn players.
>Production 20
Again, we have to mention Homogenic and Medulla, and say that it isn't as revolutionary. But it doesn't seem to be the main focus.
O: 79
S: 89
