St. Vincent - Actor

St. Vincent's (Annie Clark) second album comes in at quite a change in style and, if you dare, enjoyment in comparison to 2007's 'Marry Me'. 'Actor' is a unique blend between electronic pop and indie folk even as distant as styles from 1940's war time music in the form of love and romance. But St. Vincent however vamps he later up into dreamy and formulated synth pop, which will make it's listeners wonder where she draws her inspiration from.

'The Strangers', the first song of 'Actor' and starts out with that 1940's war time music feel mentioned above. The recurrent lyric throughout the whole song being 'Paint the black hole blacker' gives of the impression to listeners that she is either a mad artist or everything that's going on in her life is just a little bit miserable and might as well 'Paint that black hole blacker'. However, the song does kick itself out of that 1940's war time feel and enters into a little bit of Bloc Party, do see 'Song For Clay (Disappear Here) for full effect, but what St. Vincent does with it, is basically not included guitars and just included synthesizers and giving off some fuzzy sounds to warm us with delight. Second up is 'Save Me From What I Want', which in it's title, is a bit ironic don't you think? But none-the-less, Miss. Clark adds her own little bit of grace. The song is focused on a twirling guitar trail that leads into a mellow chorus where she melodically sings the title of the song.

The key song of the album is demonstrated in the first half of the album, which includes the title of the album, 'Actor Out Of Work'. This song has it all really, the catchy drumming loops, the catchy synthesizers and of course the quirky lyrics, but again, Annie Clark adds to it by adding some experimentation to it, and she highlights this at the drop of a hat and when you least expect it, she fills in a synthesizer car crash by running around her synth machine and hitting it as loud as she can to create her full desire. Going back to those quirky pop lyrics, St. Vincent proves her quirkiness by singing her 'Woo, Woo's' and of course lines like this 'I think I love you, I think am maddd' just makes you wanna love her, despite how mad she might be.

Another surprise with this album is that, not only St. Vincent creates perfect pop hooks, but she can even pull it of, by adding violins to it, even verging on swing. This is all demonstrated in 'Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood', the main structure of the song is completely fitted around in a steady simple drum beat and plus, the odd fill ins of the acoustic guitar which pluck curiously. Plus, let's not forget, Annie's brilliant quirky lyrics are a complete treasure as she sings to herself in a dream, with a line like 'And I can't see the future, but I know it has big plans for me'. The weirdness continues, straight into 'Marrow' we enter, starts out in a slow tempo, with another steady drum beat giving the song it's rhythm, but again, Annie Clarke shows up and brings her dirty synth notes to the table and blasts us into the future. The synth solo is probably the most notable point of the entire song, it's an all out full scale attack, with noisy electronica influences coming from everywhere, almost makes you feel if your listening to Nine Inch Nails' 'The Great Destroyer'.

No one really expects St. Vincent to be the next Bjork or if you want to be extreme, Madonna. But she is herself and she brings her talents forward in superb fashion, again in comparison to her debut, 'Actor' really brings out the potential Annie Clark has been hiding all along while touring with Sufjan Stevens band.

3½ / 5


Linus Broadbent.