November 25, 1999
This frosty Icelandic chanteuse has always been on the cutting edge of electronic dance music, even dating such high profile proponents as Tricky and Goldie, but her breakup with the latter drum-n-bass star was the impetus (both thematic and stylistic) for this, her most mature and innovative statement to date. Fusing the softly skittering rhythms of drum-n-bass with elegiac chamber music sounds misguided and contradictory, but in Bjork's pixie hands the fusion not only works, it seems as natural as a heartbeat. The imaginative string arrangements add a somber grace to her mourning, while the alien schizoid beats capture the scattered, angry confusion of the recently rejected.
Not that Bjork wallows in self-pity. Rather, what makes the album so powerful, so profound without being arrogant, is Bjork's self-criticism. Homogenic is a feminist primer, a catalog of personal responsibility: "How could I be so immature to think he would replace the missing elements in me? How extremely lazy of me!" Perhaps because English is her second language, Bjork's primitive poetry yields some strikingly original images communicating her status as a "Bachelorette": "I'm a fountain of blood/In the shape of a girl...I'm a path of cinders/burning under your feet." The passion that went into the lyrics is evident in her voice - Bjork drops the coquettish lilt of her earlier work for a haunting, emotionally direct style, spitting out vicious indictments like "I'm so bored with cowards who can't handle love." Every time divorce papers are filed, this extraordinary album should be issued to both parties; one for empathy, the other for reproach.
- Jared O'Connor
drum-n-bass-n-cello