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BJÖRK: Fossora (One Little Independent)
Verdict: Maverick singer digs deep
Rating: ****
THE CULT: Under the Midnight Sun (Black Hill)
Verdict: Goth rock tour de force
Rating: ****
BUSH: The Art of Survival (BMG)
Verdict: Tired and familiar
Rating: **
Maybe one day Björk will give us an album that will fill dance floors like Madonna, or give Harry Styles a run for its money in stadium-smooth bangers.
She might even come up with some songs you can sing in the shower. Fossora, it must be said now, is not that record.
The Icelandic maverick’s two most recent releases, Vulnicura and Utopia, had only a fleeting relationship with traditional verses and choruses. The first was a bleak break-up album inspired by the end of her relationship with American recording artist Matthew Barney. The latter, a pastoral affair about finding new love, was dominated by flutes.
Fossora, on first hearing, is also not for the faint of heart. It starts with clattering beats and honking clarinets. It features a wordless choral interlude and some songs that scream for a decent tune.
Björk, who wore a dress ostensibly made of a deboned swan at the Oscars in 2001, is not one for the middle ground, and Fossora is a challenging listener at times. But it’s a fascinating piece of work that will squeeze under your skin.
There are two main lines in music. The first is a variation on gabber, a brash branch of techno that originated in the Netherlands.
Björk, who wore a dress ostensibly made of a deboned swan at the Oscars in 2001, is not one for the middle ground, and Fossora is a challenging listener at times.
The second is a more conventional (if such a word can ever be applied to Björk) classical chamber music with trombone, timpani, woodwinds and pizzicato strings.
On certain songs, including Fungal City, a duet with New York singer Josiah Wise (aka Serpentwithfeet), she tries to perform both styles simultaneously. The song opens with a delicate clarinet motif before the thumping beats of Indonesian dance duo Gabber Modus Operandi take it elsewhere.
There are also intriguing lyrical themes. The album title is the feminine form of the Latin word for digger, and Björk uses images of the undergrowth – moss, mushrooms, moles and the ‘sunken mystery’ of the forest floor – as metaphors for death, decay, new life and its family roots.
There are two songs about her mother, Hildur Rúna Hauksdóttir, who died in 2018 after a long illness, and each song features her two children. Letting your kids sing to your records isn’t usually a good move, but here it fits in perfectly with Fossora’s familial undercurrents.
Especially the songs about Björk’s mother are gripping. ‘Our roots are dug in sad ground’, she laments about Sorrowful Soil, a eulogy that sounds like a piece of Renaissance plain song. ‘You did well,’ is her heartfelt conclusion. Her son, Sindri, accompanies her on Ancestress.
Fossora, on first hearing, is also not for the faint of heart. It starts with clattering beats and honking clarinets
Her daughter Ísadóra, 20, is a guest in the beautiful Her Mother’s House, a soft, melodic song about the basic principle of parenthood. Norwegian singer Emilie Nicolas also makes a wonderful cameo on Allow, a jazzy piece in which Utopia’s ‘flute club’ returns.
In her desire to move forward, Björk sometimes goes too far. But Fossora, held together by her somersault voice, and poised to become her first Top 10 album in 15 years, is a record like no other that we’re likely to hear all year long.
This week also offers rich choices for those who prefer to lose themselves in creaky guitars. The Cult’s first album in six years marks a shift from American heavy metal and a return to the more Anglicized sound of the 1985 gothic rock classic She Sells Sanctuary.
Vocalist Ian Astbury and guitarist Billy Duffy haven’t always been the easiest bedfellows, but they’re on the same wavelength on Under The Midnight Sun.
Astbury came up with the title after watching clips from a midsummer festival the group played in Finland in 1986 – where the sun never set – and there are many memories of their early years.
Maybe one day Björk will give us an album that will fill dance floors like Madonna, or give Harry Styles a run for its money in stadium-smooth bangers. Fossora, it must be said now, is not that record.
Originally from Bradford but now based in LA, the band recorded for the first time since the 1980s at Rockfield Studios in Wales, and there’s a definite post-punk punch in songs like A Cut Inside, where Duffy’s shimmering chords bring back memories. . by the late John McGeoch, once the guitarist for Siouxsie & The Banshees and Magazine.
More grandiose tendencies are also apparent. The outer sky, wreathed with strings, is spanned. But the title track is sly and seductive, and Knife Through Butterfly Heart shows why director Oliver Stone tried (unsuccessfully) to recruit Astbury to play singer Jim Morrison in his 1991 film The Doors.
Loud guitars and meaty drums come to the fore even more on Bush’s ninth album. Singer Gavin Rossdale describes The Art Of Survival as a record about the resilience of the human mind.
It’s an admirable post-pandemic message – and on the powerful opening track Heavy Is The Ocean, it feels good to have them back.
But despite some catchy hooks, they stick to a familiar routine. Derided as Nirvana lite in the 1990s, they remain indebted to the grunge era. Also lyrically Rossdale opts for the tried and tested. After touching on the dangers of robotic technology on the Blood River of 2020, he returns to the subject on More Than Machines.
They occasionally deviate from the norm. Judas Is A Riot is a party song that takes its hat off to rock ‘n’ roll classic Twist And Shout and 1000 Years an atmospheric ballad of lost love, but the feeling that they are treading water is hard to avoid.