Actor
St. Vincent
Score:88
Reviewer: Steve Scully
Label: 4AD (USA & UK), Remote Control (Australia)
Reviewed: Apr 22nd '09, Released:2009
Annie Clark is the music critic’s crumpet. Marry Me, a debut album of rare quality, took the eye-catching guitarist from behind Sufjan, from the midst of a Polyphonic Spree, and placed her at the forefront of her own movement. Now, wearing her eccentricities more lightly and taking a subtler, more measured approach, Clark has produced one heck of a sophomore record.
With winding, nigh-unfathomable melodic twists, Clark’s vision is very much like current indie darlings Kimya Dawson and Soko in that she has the ability to sound affably quirky. But she sets herself apart from these contemporaries with some real musical and lyrical chops. ‘The Stranger’, the ambulatory opening track of Actor, is typical of St Vincent’s output: kitsch strings, reminiscent of 60s Easy Listening, give way to a storm of fuzzed-up guitar. All the while Clark’s vocals are as sweet as they are disconcerting, the distant chorus line (“paint the black hole blacker”) adding a tinge of darkness. The song centres itself on a poetic and melodic hook before descending, ‘A Day in the Life’ style, into experimentalist chaos.
‘The Neighbours’ is the album’s most completely satisfying number. Clark weaves a truly beautiful verse melody and finally lets her vocals out of the sweet mould, allowing an ounce of desperation to slip in as she sings the somewhat haunting, “How can Monday be alright/ Then on Tuesday lose my mind/ Tomorrow’s some kind of stranger who I’m not supposed to see.”
At no point on Actor does Annie Clark let us go. The songs are sentimental, inspiring, and artistically complete. The sonic quirks are blatant but well-judged, strings and guitar drive the more powerful moments, piano and woodwind lead the way when the sound is more stripped-back. It’s never a grandiose trip, however, and even the crescendos are short-lived and controlled affairs, the moments of chaos fitting perfectly in the melodic formula. Not since Joanna Newsom’s Ys has a female singer songwriter made an album as surprising and special as this: Actor is a brilliant effort, a tightly-built album, and a powerfully poetic and idiosyncratic piece of art.
