Björk "Army of me"

"Army of me", the first single from "Post", reveals the darker sides of Björk, sounding like a stripped-down, less angst-ridden version of Nine Inch Nails. There's just Björk's, surprisingly cold and unemotional, vocals and a repetitive drum-beat assisted by the bass-guitar from Hell, creating a great contrast to the warm and care-taking sound of "Debut". The title track is assisted by four remixes, which are just as harsch and brutal as the original version. First out Beastie Boys contribute with a nice hip hop-version based on a strange violin-sample and a rough drum-loop. It's quite slow and omnious, which makes it sound like (the brilliant) Tricky's more hip hop-oriented works. Graham Massey's version is even better, combining electronic noises and softly distorted guitars with loops and scratching sounds, creating an amusing mixture of hip hop and industrial. The definitive high-light however, is Skunk Anasie's heavy metal-remake (!!!) of the song. Skin and her mates have transformed the track into their typical 70s-oriented guitar-solo-based metal. Björk has re-recorded the vocals to make it fit more with the music and she's doing lots of experiments with her voice, ranging from lovely screams to cool breath-catching noises. A higly amusing counterpart to the machine-based original version and a nostalgic trip back to Björk's youth. The single closes with an instrumental version of the Beastie Boys-remix allowing the listener to focus more on the cool background-noises.