It features the singer driving an enormous vehicle through a city, fighting a gorilla dentist to get back a diamond he took from her mouth, and bombing a museum with dynamite to free a boy.

[3] The singer further explained the song: "Imagine you're in a club full of heavy metal types and grunge people; 'Army of Me' is like someone's granny blasting out over the PA and saying, 'Snap out of it!

"Army of Me" is an aggressive[7] industrial rock[8] and trip hop[9] song with elements of techno[10] dominated by a heavy bassline in C Locrian.

"[9] Eric Handerson of Slant Magazine found that the song "provocatively merges a Weather Report-esque jazz-fusion bass riff with a heavy-timbered rock drumbeat to match her contemptuous vocal delivery ('Self-sufficience, please!

')"[16] Natalie Curtis described the song as "inelegant";[17] Mim Udovitch of Rolling Stone dubbed it "ominous, anthemic",[13] with Lou Stathis of MTV calling it "booming, martial-march techno".

[18] According to Brantley Bardin of Details, "Army of Me" is "the album’s straightest song, a manifesto about self-sufficiency",[19] while for Liz Hoggard of The Observer, the track is "brutal yet tender".

Refreshingly Icelandic sentiments",[4] and further stating that "'Army Of Me' not only sounds fabulous—Led Zeppelin and techno welded together into a surging, operatic whole—but possesses a briskly pull-yourself-together tone.

[4] In a positive review, Heather Phares of AllMusic stated that "'Army of Me' casts Björk against type as a warrior goddess fed up with whining, instead of her usual cyber-pixie persona...the song's pounding industrial beat, menacing synth bass, and unusually aggressive lyrics ('And if you complain once more / You'll meet an army of me') stand in sharp contrast to the rest of the album and to most of her previous work.

"[21] Pan-European magazine Music & Media wrote, "Chased by an extremely dangerous synth baseline and drums, the Icelandic siren with the most peculiar vocal technique – even her breathing is special – accelerates whenever its necessary.

"[22] Music Week gave the song three out of five, saying that "the long-awaited return isn't quite the quirky pop we come to expect from the singer but a more brooding, darker affair".

"[23] Bidisha from NME opined that "Bjork's quirk-by-numbers "Army of Me" sounds like pretend music played on squeaky toy synthesisers.

"[24] Another NME editor, Ted Kessler, wrote, "The song's main malaise is its lack of tune or colour, augmented by a vocal performance that feels flat and uncommitted.

It's like the forlorn, sickly, weakling little sister of "Human Behaviour", full of dizzy bass and drums that busily lead nowhere..."[25] According to The New York Times writer Joy Press, "'Army of Me' is so menacing and inorganic-sounding it verges on industrial rock",[26] and in a review, Pulse!

[28] Andy Beevers from the RM Dance Update noted that the song "is built around a downtempo beat and a dirty great throbbing synth line with the unmistakable and defiant vocals soaring above.

The singer "said that she wanted to capture that 'tanker-truck' feeling, the sense of a big machine grinding unstoppably through town"[34] and further stated: "I thought I should be driving a very, very big truck to try to wake this person who's asleep, so I get the biggest truck in the world, and I'm so mad I've got metallic teeth, because when you're really angry, you grind your teeth.

[35]Björk and her label declined to use footage from the film Tank Girl (which features the track on its soundtrack) in the music video for "Army of Me".

Sneaking past the museum's guards, she places the bomb on one of the exhibits – the young man seen in the beginning of the video lying on an altar in a deep sleep.

Tim Walker of The Independent thought that "catchy, commercial song that was utterly original, and she's easily beautiful enough to have taken advantage of her sexuality in the video, but instead she got Michel Gondry to make a brilliant promo about her going to a gorilla dentist to get a huge diamond pulled out of her mouth".

Björk performed the song live on Italian musical show Festivalbar and on The White Room, along with "I Miss You".

The alternative metal/post-hardcore band Helmet recorded a cover of "Army of Me" which was released on a Music for Our Mother Ocean benefit compilation.

English rock band Drama recorded a cover of the song to perform at the 2010 UK Live & Unsigned regional final in Manchester, 7 March.

Polish progressive metal/post-metal band Proghma-C recorded a cover version on their debut album Bar-do Travel, 2009.

French progressive metal band Klone also recorded a cover of the song as a bonus track on their 2010 album Black Days.

Italian nu metal band Exilia recorded a cover of this song on their album Can't Break Me Down in 2005.

[43] American rock band In This Moment released a cover of the song as the fourth single from their eighth studio album, Godmode, on 20 September 2023.

[44][45] In 2005, Björk opened a contest to choose from various remixes for the song, to release a compilation to help raise funds for charity.

The compilation, called Army of Me: Remixes and Covers was released in May 2005 and as of January 2006, the album had raised around £250,000 to help UNICEF's work in the south east Asian region.