The follow-up to St. Vincent's (Annie Clark's) first album “Marry Me” (2007) features eleven new songs, all written and arranged by Clark. The arrangements are more masterful, the songwriting grander, the performances ever more confident and inspired. Clark toured extensively in support of “Marry Me” with artists like The National, Death Cab For Cutie, and Arcade Fire, and was named Female Artist Of The Year at the 2008 PLUG Independent Music Awards. Before recording as St. Vincent, she was a member of The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens' touring band, and she performed with Glenn Branca's guitar orchestra.
Review:
St. Vincent's Annie Clark is a unique talent; she's as much a musician
as she is a songwriter, and both her sounds and her words are delicately
uncompromising. She blends rock, jazz, electronic, and classical touches
together so seamlessly that it doesn't seem remarkable, and as lovely as her
voice and music can be, she's too strange and too smart to be merely winsome.
Marry Me was as bold as its title proposal suggested, uniting her sardonic,
whip-smart viewpoint and jaunty music into songs with beacon-like clarity.
Things are murkier, but no less fascinating, on Actor, Marry Me's darker and
more ambitious follow-up. Musically and lyrically, the album often feels like a
duel (and occasionally, a duet) between Clark's collected, literate side and
her raging emotions. This is especially striking on Actor's arrangements and
instrumentation, which are even more expressive than they were on Marry Me.
“The Strangers” opens the album with choral vocals, woodwinds, and typically
charming/unsettling lyrics: “Desperate doesn't look good on you/Neither does
your virtue.” But before things get too dainty, massively distorted guitar and
drums let out the fury that's been brewing in the song the entire time (later,
“The Bed” offers an even sharper contrast between innocence and violence).
“Marrow” is just as startling, switching from pretty to abrasive and back
again with a swiftness that's surprising, even knowing how fond Clark is of
turning her songs on their sides. She also loves couching uncomfortable moments
in sweet sounds and vice versa, so it's no surprise that Actor's poppiest
songs are its most disturbing. On the album's single, the forceful rocker
“Actor Out of Work,” she pulls in and levels a lover in just over two
minutes, beginning with alluring “oohs” and then twisting the knife with
putdowns like “You're the curses through my teeth” – the song's brisk
dance between hot and cold is dazzling. Likewise, “Laughing with a Mouth of
Blood” pairs the album's most gruesome song title with one of its most
honeyed melodies. As brilliantly as Clark uses these contrasts, at times they
threaten to overpower Actor's songs, and the slightly more straightforward,
Marry Me-like tracks such as “Save Me from What I Want” and “The Party”
help balance the album with some breathing space. Similarly, while the
album's elaborately layered sounds are engrossing, they tend to overshadow
Clark's equally thoughtful lyrics at first – although when she sings
“Tomorrow's some kind of stranger who I'm not supposed to see” on “The
Neighbors,” it's with more palpable emotion than anything she sang on Marry
Me. “The Sequel” ends Actor on a fittingly uneasy, open-ended note, given
all the complexities that came before it. This is some of St. Vincent's most
complicated music, but its fearless creativity rewards repeated listening, as
Clark has few rivals when it comes to seducing ears and challenging minds at the
same time.
All Music Guide – Heather Phares