CD Reviews

St. Vincent | Strange Mercy

4AD (2011)

By ZETH LUNDY | September 13, 2011

3.0 Stars

The pretty/ugly dichotomy at the heart of Annie Clark's St. Vincent moniker is in full tug-of-war on her third and most challenging full-length. Clark's fragile, Siouxsie-esque voice contrasts sharply with her thorny, provocative guitar, and Strange Mercy is truly honey-on-sandpaper stuff. On songs like the nimble "Cruel," with its misshapen showtune asides, and the nearly funky "Neutered Fruit," that contrast is beguiling. Other tunes — like the pounding "Northern Lights" and early-Prince headtrip "Hysterical Strength" — are more confrontational. As a whole, Strange Mercy is slower and denser than Clark's stellar second album, Actor, and loaded with more compulsive repetition. Choruses are not so much choruses as near-melodic mantras: "I, I, I, I/I don't want to be a cheerleader no more," she sings in album standout "Cheerleader," a hand knocking on a door. Likewise, the title of "Chloe in the Afternoon" becomes its simple broken-record refrain. It's post-punk dream-pop catharsis, with all the good and bad that that implies, sometimes frantically interrupted by a fuzz-toned, quick-drawn six-string. Sonically, the album is rich and inventive, if at times a noisy cluster. Fleetwood-style dead drums, big-sky synths, and a guitar that cuts closer to avant-jazz than indie rock provide the lush backdrop for a collection of songs about the deceptions in human interaction. Knotty and enigmatic as it is, Strange Mercy becomes more intriguing the more you listen to it — even if that means you also get further away from comprehending its idiosyncrasy.

KT Tunstall | Tiger Suit
The KT Tunstall of Tiger Suit is tougher, louder, and more electronically endowed than the KT Tunstall of its poppy predecessor, 2007's Drastic Fantastic , and Eye to the Telescope three years before that.
The Sounds | Something To Die For
The recent news that British electronic act Faithless have called it a day no doubt left dejected ravers reaching for extra MDMA to stave off the tears.
Emmylou Harris | Hard Bargain
Anyone with a passing knowledge of Emmylou Harris will recognize that "The Road," the opening track on Hard Bargain, is about Gram Parsons and the relationship that kicked off her career 40 years ago.
The In Out | The Venal Column
The In Out are one of Boston's true underground rock bands.
Fountains of Wayne | Sky Full of Holes
Sky Full of Holes, the first Fountains album in four years, is another reminder of why the band deserve some limelight of their own.
Pepper Rabbit | Red Velvet Snow Ball
Were Zach Braff still struggling to get Garden State made, there's no doubt one of these songs would have made the mix CD he was shopping around Hollywood with his script.
Grace Jones | Hurricane
Seriously: you'll probably refuse to believe me when I say that a one-time Bond villainess is behind this near-masterpiece, a collection of way-heavy grooves packed with wit, wisdom, and ballsier-than-ballsy vocal takes.
Mates of State | Mountaintops
As the sequenced synths and handsome beats unfold, matched in merriment by the husband-and-wife vocals of Jason Hammel and Kori Gardner, your mind is miles away from the raging fires of the underworld.
Twin Sister | In Heaven
It's one of 2011's finest pop records: 10 tracks of dreamy, weirdo hi-fi pop that grooves, sparkles, and hums with clipped beats and smooth drums.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah | Hysterical
Deploying the magic touch of indie producer-superhero John Congleton, these five musicians have never sounded more like a rock band, and these 12 spacious, dreamy excursions benefit from the added muscle.
The timely pop return of Emergency Music
"I would agree that Emergency Music started at a rough time to be in a band if you're comparing it to starting up a band in 2011," frontman Jesse Duquette offers via email.
Less

Topics: CD Reviews , Music, Annie Clark, CD reviews, More

| More

Most Popular

The Current Issue

Table of Contents

Cover Archive

Masthead | Authors | Contact us

Blogs

Where To Follow Me
Talking Politics | March 24, 2013 at 11:09 AM

Mo Takes His Turn
March 21, 2013 at 12:59 PM

[Q&A] KMFDM's Sascha Konietzko on art, Columbine and having balls
On The Download | March 18, 2013 at 3:22 PM

See this film series: The Belmont World Film Series @ Studio Cinema in Belmont
Outside The Frame | March 18, 2013 at 11:00 AM

See this film: This is Spinal Tap [with post-film talk by expert from Acoustical Society of America] @ the Coolidge
March 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM

ARTICLES BY ZETH LUNDY

BROWN BIRD | FITS OF REASON | March 18, 2013
Brown Bird, a boundary-pushing Americana duo from Rhode Island, make music that touches upon that can't-put-my-finger-on-it amalgamation of past and future sounds.

NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS | PUSH THE SKY AWAY | February 20, 2013
Much like the similarly low-key The Boatman's Call , Cave's highly anticipated 15th album with the Bad Seeds manages the puzzling feat of making a great band seem inconsequential, if not entirely absent.

SCOTT WALKER | BISH BOSCH | November 27, 2012
Scott Walker's late-period about-face is one of the strangest in the annals of pop music.

BILL WITHERS | THE COMPLETE SUSSEX AND COLUMBIA ALBUMS | October 31, 2012
Bill Withers has always been the down-to-earth, odd-man-out of the '70s soul brothers: he's the one who came bearing a lunch box on the cover of his relaxed 1971 debut, Just as I Am .

R.E.M. | DOCUMENT [25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION] | September 19, 2012
Fans of R.E.M. enjoy arguing over which album was the band's true shark-jump, but 1987's Document was inarguably the end of a groundbreaking era.