The Best Thing I Heard This Week-St. Vincent

If this isn’t the best record I hear this year, well then damn, somebody is going to be really outdoing themselves in the next few months. Because Annie Clark (St. Vincent) just plain laid it all out here. Strange Mercy is a scarred, yet respendently cathartic record, and an absolute joy to listen to. I thought it unlikely that she’d be able to top her fantastic 2009 record Actor, because that album is near-perfect, but Strange Mercy does just that, throwing out infectious hooks that you will be humming for the near future.

The first track that really grabs you is “Cruel.” The guitar melody is so pure and catchy that the first time I heard it, I was convinced it had to be a cover. It’s a shame that “Cruel” and “Cheerleader” weren’t written until 2011, as they certainly could have been on the soundtrack to any number of movies written about the difficulties of high school.[1. Though, Clark stated that she wasn’t channeling high school when asked about the inspiration.] “Cruel” is right up there with “Macchu Picchu” for having the best guitar hook of the year, in my book. Through all of the sweetness of that hook though, Clark conveys sense of past trauma that keeps popping up through the rest of the record.



In an interview with All Songs Considered, Clark stated that while her previous record, Actor, was meticulously calculated and written on her home computer, Strange Mercy was created through an entirely different process. This time, she recorded skeletal bits of songs with just guitar and voice before heading to a studio and laying it down for the album, with computers not being involved until the end. The result is a more emotionally raw record, which fits with this theme of scarred catharsis. The difference is most present in the stunted, stuttering choruses. Listen to how she elegantly stumbles over the “I, I, I, I, I don’t want to be a cheerleader no more”:



That stutter punctuates the first half of Strange Mercy (listen her “struggle just to get along, get along, get along” on “Surgeon”), until the guitar freakout at the end of “Northern Lights” transforms the rest of the record. The songs that follow are more measured than the first five. “Dilettante” marches along with a chugging guitar, while Clark deftly outlines a character on “Year of the Tiger,” confident yet full of remorse.[1. “I always had a knack with the danger...Italian shoes / like these rubes know the difference / suitcase of cash / in the back of my stickshift / I had to be the best of the bourgeoisie...oh America / can I owe you one?”] The way she plays with words yet keeps the song from becoming playful on “Hysterical Strength”[1. “Must have been a case / of hysterical strength / to stand up / while the room moved off its axis."] and her conviction on “Strange Mercy” as she threatens “if I ever meet the dirty policeman / who roughed you up / then I don’t know what,” shows a songwriter at the top of her game.



Annie Clark exhibits a rare talent to tell an affecting story and use her guitar to combine it with a transfixing melody. This talent is in full-force on Strange Mercy, as Clark drags her guitar across old wounds, leaving us with the messy but utterly contagious results. In the aforementioned All Songs Considered interview, they asked how she managed to get the guitar sound she has on the record. While she went into technical details later in the interview, the first thing she said was that you have to throw your whole body into it. Which is a good metaphor for this record, honestly. It’s all here, with full-body force, and the best thing I heard this week.



Photo by Guus Krol