Vulnicura Live review ★★★★

With a limited run in 2015, happily (and perhaps inevitably) Vulnicura Live is now seeing a wider release. For those partial to expensive collectors’ items, there is even a luxury box set featuring a build-your-own paper moth mask (similar to the mask worn by Björk during the tour).
The majority of the tracks on Vulnicura Live stick close to their studio originals, but here they are permitted to breathe. Despite the deeply personal subject matter, this is a collective experience. It is as if the narrative is now a play, delivered by Björk to her audience as a retrospective account of past troubles. If Vulnicura cast the listener as a voyeur, then Vulnicura Live offers up the role of confidant.
Boasting incandescent strings, Stonemilker is a majestic and graceful as ever ; Björk’s pleas for emotional respect this time seeming as much an appeal for empathy from her audience as a direct appeal to her estranged love. Black Lake is delivered with a marginally tempered torment ; her voice sonding lee isolated by virtue of the live setting.
It is customary for Björk to include new takes on older material on her live albums, and five such tracks are included here. The highliht of these is an absolutely outstanding version of Come to Me ; sleek, brooding and dark, with the playful beat of the Debut original nowhere to be heard. While Vulnicura Live proper, rest assured that it is every bit as breathtaking.