Don’t let Annie Clark aka St. Vincent throw you by her appearance. Although she may look harmless, her guitar tone would tend to disagree. Her latest release, Actor, is no sophomore slump to debut Marry Me from back in 2007, but improves on the things she does best.
Actor opens with “The Strangers”, which sets the tone for the elegance of the album to begin, but throughout we see a more “dirty” guitar tone, as Clark has said before in multiple interviews (check it out here). “Marrow” helps us agree with her as throughout the chorus we hear “H-E-L-P/Help Me/Help Me” as well as a more rugged tone on lead single “Actor Out Of Work”. Clocking in at just under forty minutes, the album’s change of pace throughout creates a pleasant listening experience as tracks such as “The Party”, as she pleads for her helplessness “Oh my pockets hang out like two surrender flags/Oh but I’d pay anything to keep my conscience clean/I’m keeping my eyes on the exit sign steady now”, and “The Sequel” wisps us away into something unlike anything we’ve seen or experienced in 2009.
Clark works her magic throughout Actor, which she created mostly using Garageband and then totally bring them together instrumentally is quite impressive in itself. Her ability to bring these songs to life and the expressiveness we see throughout the release really gives us something unlike many releases this year, and provides proof that there is much more to come from this curly-haired musician.
Here’s our countdown towards WPGU’s Album of the Year:
20. Jay-Z: The Blueprint 3
19. Manchester Orchestra: Mean Everything To Nothing
18. Wolfmother: Cosmic Egg
17. The Flaming Lips: Embryonic
16. Miike Snow: Miike Snow
15. Discovery: LP
14. Silversun Pickups: Swoon
13. Julian Casablancas: Phrazes for the Young
12. Andrew Bird: Noble Beast
11. The Avett Brothers: I and Love and You
10. Japandroids: Post-Nothing
9. Arctic Monkeys: Humbug
8. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It’s Blitz!
7. St. Vincent: Actor
#6 coming Tuesday…stay tuned!
