Review: 'Vulnicura,' Bjork's 'complete heartbreak album'

There's an open wound running down the middle of Bjork's chest on the cover of her new album Vulnicura (One Little Indian *** ½), a gash in her heart that the music contained therein hopes to heal.

It's not the thievery of her music - Vulnicura was leaked on the Internet last weekend, then released on iTunes on Tuesday - that has the Icelandic avant-pop singer in pain. The cause of her hurt is the end of her long term relationship with Matthew Barney, the Cremaster Cycle visual artist and father of their daughter Isadora.

Bjork's agony is considerable. In a note she posted on her Facebook page this week, she described Vulnicura as a "complete heartbreak album." In "Black Lake," the most emotionally raw song, she sings "Our love was my womb, but our bond has broken / My shield is gone, my protection taken / I am one wound."

This is bad for Bjork, but good for her music. The 49 year old singer, who put Icelandic music on the map first with her band The Sugarcubes then on platinum albums such as Debut and Post in the `1990s, is the most analytical of pop artists. Her last album, Biophilia (2011), was a fascinating conceptual work about nature and technology whose main talking point was an innovative app that is now part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art, where a retrospective exhibit titled simply Bjork will open on March 7.

But while nearly everything Bjork does is fascinating, the cerebral nature of her angular music, not to mention the off kilter cadences with which she sings, rarely makes for easy listening. And to be sure, Vulnicura - Latin derived from roots meaning "wound, or injury" and "heal, or care" - is still mighty challenging. Its nine songs were produced and written by Bjork, with production assistance by rising Venezuelan knob twiddler Alejandro Ghersi, whose stage name is Arca, and who also co-wrote two songs.

The album consists entirely of strings, vocals and beats. Many tunes are drawn out, down tempo affairs, as the singer, whose last name (though Icelanders don't really have last names) is Gudmundsdottir, carefully enunciates lyrics like "Is there a place where I can pay my respects / For the death of my family?"

What Vulnicura has going for it, though, is the soul searing directness of its language, and its beating, burning  heart.  The album is methodical in its approach: In the liner notes, the songs are dated, like diary entries chronicling the division of Bjork and Barney's union. "Moments of clarity are so rare, I better document this," she sings in the opening "Stonemilker," which is labeled "9 months before," and which aims to find the geography of two lovers' "mutual coordinate."

By the time of the 10 minute stunner "Black Lake," which is the fourth track, Bjork is working through her rage. "My soul torn apart, my spirit is broken," she sings, angry and bereft as skittering beats burst through the violins and cellos, like volcanic ash exploding through an eerily beautiful Icelandic landscape. "You fear my limitless emotions, I'm bored of your apocalyptic obsessions / Did I love you too much?"

There's an intensity to Bjork's delivery thoughout.  Her struggle makes her an empathetic figure the listener can identify with, a flesh and blood sufferer rather than an otherworldly spirit or a mere magical musical conjurer walking the red carpet in a swan dress.

The haunting music is deeply felt whether she's trying to find herself a place in a tangled vocal back and forth with Anthony Hegarty in "Atom Dance," or on the knotty "Notget" which is the key transitional song as she fights through her torment as astringent strings vie with percussive electronics.  "Don't remove my pain," she sings, refusing to discard the hurt. "it is my chance to heal."

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