Tanya Tagaq, a Canadian Inuk throat singer, and Bjork, an Icelandic white-throated warbler (courtesy of birdfacts), have enjoyed distinct careers that often align in curious ways. They merged styles on Bjork’s standout Medulla, an album propelled by its a cappella backing driven largely by Tagaq. What’s more, Tanya and Bjork have both emerged as cultural icons, exporting the musicology of their freezing homelands to listeners worldwide. Indeed, their fire-and-brimstone core, consisting of growls and yells, break up traditional feminine harmonization and challenge gender roles, Western pop, and, yes, our eardrums. Their two latest albums, Tagaq’s Animism and Bjork’s Vulnicura, stem from a place of hurt, with Tagaq working to defend her shrinking homeland, and Bjork setting fire to her dissolved marriage. Both defend themselves valiantly–these are two artists with tremendous heart.

Tagaq’s Animism is strongly bound to the culture of the Inuits, with its sights set solely on the melding of animal and spirit. The land of the Inuits is misused, abused, and, thanks to accelerating climate change, quickly shrinking. The cost is not merely environmental–Tagaq’s yells forecast the death of a culture. The result is fearful. Most of this album is conveyed non-lyrically; instead, we’re trapped with Tagaq, whose outbursts, yells, and throat-singing are impressive and intolerable. The two songs that offer some harmony–a place to weather the cold–come with a great sigh of relief. Animism, then, is both a grand achievement in expression, and a bitter pill in execution.

It’s hard to know when Animism is musically appropriate. I had to turn off Animism at a polite dinner party when Tagaq’s shrieks made us acutely aware of the steak on our place. “Sorry about that,” I offered, turning on some anodyne instrumentals instead. I had to turn it off again when developing my academic paper because I was thrown off by the throes of Tagaq’s ecstatic groans. This is not an album built for multitasking. The album demands all of your attention: sweat it out like a fever dream and try to decipher the underlying meaning of its animalistic cries (or if you want to cheat, read the tracklist–the last song is called “Fracking”). If you’re willing to devote the time, Animism offers layers of depths, and stands as a true blend of the Inuit soundscape and the wealth of instrumentation found in a recording studio. It’s a rewarding listen, but I don’t know when I’ll be able to listen to it again. 6/10

Bjork’s Vulnicura, meanwhile, displays a different sort of vulnerability. Vulnicura offers Bjork’s confessions, damnations and closure of her long-standing marriage with Matthew Barney. We’ve moved away from songs like “Mutual Core,” a song about singularity among synthetics and organics, in order to attempts to find any common ground. “A juxtaposition in faith,” she cries on “Stonemilker,” “Find our mutual coor…dinates.” This, like Tagaq’s work, is the unprocessed pulp of human emotion. Whereas Bjork’s other recent offerings were a bit too calculated, programmed on iPads with Timbaland shoehorned in, Vulnicura’s orchestral spine gives adequate support to Bjork’s impressive set of lungs. Surprisingly, her vocal range here is muted. For Bjork, at least, the vocals in Vulnicura generally remain in the margins, as if she is too wounded to take on the full stage. What’s left is an album clear in its intent, with legal documents scattered, emotional scars raised, dotted with the broken remnants of a family torn asunder. It’s heart-achingly sad, and the best material Bjork has released since her collaboration with Tanya Tagaq. 7/10