Album Review: Scott Walker - Bish Bosch

There'll be two distinct kinds of review for this album. Those who get it – or claim to – will have it as art, a work of genius. Others will dismiss it as indulgent twaddle, merely designed to provoke. The truth? A bit of both. Actually, scratch that, a lot of both.

Walker's journey from '70s crooner to avant-garde composer is something in itself. From crippling stagefright, emotional and artistic collapse, to being referenced and championed by Jarvis Cocker and Radiohead among others, gives him a near-mythic status, allowing for the often years between his releases. Some of Bish Bosch's music is remarkable. Shards of orchestra come at you then collapse to silence. Something will squeal unexpectedly, or a jagged discordance will slip into Walker's still-expressive voice unfurling a melody that could almost be called 'pop'.

Then there are his lyrics, oblique blocks among the sounds. You're an uncomfortable witness as he messes in his own psyche, like some sort of musical therapy. Twist your own head in knots as you try and follow a process that connects Attila The Hun, dark star astronomy, old Hollywood's Louis B. Mayer, abattoir visions, even an off-colour joke ('If music were shit/You'd be a brass band'). All that and more happens across the 23 minutes of SDSS 1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter). Yes, the titles are sometimes as impenetrable as the musical concrete. There's even a 'Xmas song': The Day The Conducator Died jingles, before closer inspection reveals an impatient firing squad ending the reign of Romania's Ceausescu.

It's an utterly polarising record, even to itself. You will not play it through more than a couple of times, but bits will stay with you – if only to puzzle.