No artist divides a room quicker than Bjork. Mention a random indie rock band, and all you get is blank stares and puzzled expressions. But suggest listening to Iceland’s most famous singer and you’ll be criticized faster than Don Imus, with people wondering how you can tolerate her shrill voice and off-time delivery. Plus, people still harp on the whole swan thing.

Truth be told, no matter how hard fans like me try to prove the naysayers point wrong, Bjork is probably the hardest pop artist to get into. Yeah, there’s her voice, but blaming her pipes (and bizarre public persona) doesn’t do her justice. During an era where the top pop acts did the same routine for every single song, Bjork revolutionized music, never settling for a set sound. She dabbled in direct pop, electronic and even Broadway show tunes. Her last album, Medulla, featured only noises generated by the human body. No Justin Timberlake, that’s for sure.

But something funny happens on Volta, her sixth and latest album. Bjork steps away from the abstract sound of her past work, recruits a slew of guests, including the mind behind “My Love” himself, Timbaland, to craft some of her most accessible songs (still packed with experimentation) and a welcome addition to Bjork’s majestic discography.

Volta finds Bjork singing outwardly, as opposed to the more introverted Medulla and Vespertine. The cover art sums it up: This album is colorful and showy, begging for attention with catchy techniques but still holding a certain amount of weirdness. The Timbaland-produced lead song “Earth Intruders” sets the scene nicely. Hopping along on tribal drums and ghostly chants, this is the closest Bjork may ever come to being radio-friendly, which isn’t saying much, since not many stations would give an African dance circle much of a chance on the air waves, especially when its frequently undercut by sharp, Homogenic-era synths. Still, “Earth Intruders” stands as Volta’s most ear-catching track, a drum-heavy ditty only a few degrees away from a club banger.

Bjork’s latest sees the siren dipping her toes into the world of traditionally accepted styles, only to kick about in crazy directions and add her own ripples. Timbaland’s other two contributions, “Innocence” and “Hope,” sound more Timbaland-ish than “Earth Intruders,” but still nothing like a Missy Elliott or Nelly Furtado cut. The former employs a typically Timabaland heavy drumbeat, but is constructed from what sounds like the disembodied screams of a man being tortured. “Hope” opens similarly to “My Love,” with Bjork’s voices multi-tracked over one another. Instead of leaping into an ocean of synth and schmaltz, however, a Spanish-sounding guitar slides alongside Bjork’s high-reaching voice, birthing one of the most interesting sonic combos ever seen on a Bjork record.

Elsewhere, Bjork falls back on her tired-and-true composition style. She teams up with New York singer/songwriter Antony Hegarty (singer for Antony and the Johnsons) for the slow-moving epic “Dull Flame of Love,” a simple but gorgeous song. Alone, Bjork and Antony’s wails soar high, but the track truly shines when their voices intertwine and join with a horn midway through. On “I See Who You Are,” she melds a twinkling Vespertine-like music box melody with a Chinese pipa, creating a Zen-like backdrop for live-the-moment lyrics like “Lets celebrate now / All this flesh on our bones.”

Her new outward-looking lyrical approach means Bjork’s dabbling in a realm predominantly occupied by Bob Dylan-wannabes and Connor Oberst: the political song. Somehow, the Icelandic crooner doesn’t sound too awkward when it comes to current events. “Earth Intruders” is either about how the human race should come together as one or how mankind continuously fucks up the earth (words like “turmoil,” “carnage” and “mud graves” get thrown around quite a bit). In “Hope” she gets even more detailed, with head-scratching lines like “What’s the lesson / of the evils / if a suicide bomber / made to look pregnant / manages to kill her target / or not?” But her political aim comes across most bluntly on the jarring “Declare Independence,” Volta’s climax. The song resembles Homogenic’s “Pluto,” the one song on that album where Bjork stopped making delicate sounds to “explode this body.” Whereas “Pluto” was an inner rupture, “Declare Independence” sees Bjork channeling all her rage into a checklist for colonial rebellion. Her instructions include creating currency and flags, defending native languages and urgings to “ignore the patronizing / sheer off the blindfold / open your eyes,” all before hitting the passionately delivered chorus of “declare independence / don’t let them do that to you.” “Declare Independence” is Volta’s most powerful moment, and its most memorable track.

Volta never approaches the breathtaking heights of her ’90s masterpieces, nor does it outshine Medulla. But that’s how it should be. Bjork’s latest mixes enough mainstream-leaning tracks with more traditional Bjork fare, making for a strong listen. Her latest songs aren’t going to change many people’s opinions of her, but nothing probably will. Volta’s an interesting addition to Bjork’s legacy, a reminder of her song-crafting ability and her ambition to experiment.