First of all, thanks for growing your hair out, girlll!
Second of all: the new album. Strange Mercy. what do you think?
Reader, I'm a little at a loss. When this album is good it is BRILLIANT. St. Vincent is very accessible and does have a pop feel to her sound, yes, a cloying little female singer-songwriter vehicle like so many before her. Think Regina Spektor, even (egads). but what separates her from the fold is she sounds like she is slowly going insane. or maybe she's already insane BUT WE JUST DON'T KNOW.
That's how this whole album is. Even Actor didn't leave me feel like I had stumbled out of a dreamlike daze this much. I mean that in the least pretentious way possible, by the by. It just happens to be how so much of it is. "Hysterical Strength" (my personal favorite btw), "Year of the Tiger," "Dilettante"...each song is carried by some supernatural, some disembodied element. Like she's half-awake and humming.
I'm not sure the plot or story behind Strange Mercy but there's got to be one, somewhere, like Actor was a concept album based on various films a la Woody Allen and Disney. The title itself is a Eric Rohmer reference.
There has to be one- her lyrics are so damn literary. see here:
Oh Elijah, don't make me wait
I got no patience for an estrangement, anyway
Wake up, avenue C
Your hometown is still sleeping
You're like a party I heard through the wall
Invite me
But I'm always watching you through a key hole
Let's not forget
Where we crawled from
Oh Elijah, don't make me wait
What is so pressing
You can't undress me anyway?
Swoon!
Even the cover itself is a dead giveaway to the rest of the album. Things don't feel or seem like they should be at first glance or touch. Under the surface of everything, lies something extremely disturbing. But for our sanity's sake (maybe mine, maybe St. Vincent's) we don't go underneath there.
This being said- I think this is also the first album she's put out where she's gotten quite soulful at times, which she is TOTALLY capable of doing. I mean she has the chops and the voice for it.
The downsides to this album? Some parts are just "blah." Some parts are just...they don't stick with you. It's like she keeps grasping at something THAT IS JUST NOT THERE. But like I said before, the moments of brilliance will stick. Genius is genius and Annie Clark is getting to be a bit of an understated, smirking one, at that. Wounded doe-eyed girl with guitar? Bitch please. She probably poisoned your tea when you turned your back.
rating: A-
one Jackie Kennedy short of a political reunion
an Anne Hathaway worthy Emmy
LOOK ANOTHER PICTURE
CREEPY CREEPY CREEPY
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