Divorce albums are not rare. Dylan, Springsteen, Marvin Gaye, Bill Withers, George Jones and Tammy Wynette (separately), and Richard and Linda Thompson (together!) compacted the torment and tussle of committed love’s finality into neatly arranged, psychically discordant packages. Nothing, though, was ever neat about Björk. Why should her divorce be so? Veering from radiantly subtle to wrenchingly ham-fisted (sometimes within seconds of the other), the Icelandic chanteuse and electronic orchestrator turns a black light on the disintegration of her marriage to artist Matthew Barney with Vulnicura in the same way that Vespertine heralded that union of similarly disposed souls with neon brights. Bleak and cold, spacious and smothering, Vulnicura has a tactile shroud that you can almost touch, as Björk unites emotional unrest and physical distress in a manner that once made albums such as 1995’s Post blissfully sexual-sensual. A small team of vocalists and producers (Antony, Arca, Haxan Cloak, etc.) fill in dots on the testy treatises of “Stonemilker,” “History Of Touches,” “Lionsong” and the like. Yet, the gut-shot disgust of a marriage on its short heels is all Björk, alone at the end. Isn’t that what the closure of divorce truly tastes like anyway? —A.D. Amorosi
