The bizarre, vibrantly colored cover image on Björk's sixth album, Volta, should provide some indication that the diva's flamboyant, animated persona has stepped back into the forefront. Volta is an album rife with quirks and curiosities, of incongruous elements and unlikely arrangements. It finds the danceable snuggling up with the serene, the raw and grimy doing twirls around the elegant and delicate. In other words, it's quintessentially Björk.

First single "Earth Intruders" is one of two collaborations with Timbaland, who provides some tribal, marching, tumbling beats beneath a wobbly electro backing and Björk's own commanding vocals. The result is something like a cross between "Human Behaviour" and "Army of Me," making for an instant classic. Even more idiosyncratic is "The Dull Flame of Desire," a tender ballad that finds Björk trading verses with Antony Hegarty (of Antony and the Johnsons) over frantic drumming courtesy of Lightning Bolt's Brian Chippendale. More bouncy Timbaland beats drive "Innocence," a song booming and youthful, while "I See Who You Are" reveals more of a teary, human side to the eccentric singer as she ruminates life on Earth with her daughter ("Let's celebrate now / Of this flesh and our bones / Let's enjoy it") over the virtuosic pipa work of Min Xiao-Fen.

More than anything, Volta is a reaffirmation of Björk's uniqueness. Her kitchen sink approach to production and arrangement, her vivacious personality, her otherworldly lyrical content - it's all just more evidence that she's music's most colorful (cartoon) character. In the noisy, punk stomp "Declare Independence," she seems to put it best: "Declare independence ... Raise your flag!"

-Jeff Terich

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