Actor
St. Vincent's debut Marry Me (2007) was a very promising record. It showcased a lot of talent but wasn't a fully cohesive effort. On Actor, Annie Clark shows confidence in her songcraft, completely breaking free of the adult alternative camp that she teetered over on her first album. From the start, Actor whisks you away into a fairytale world with "The Strangers", a song that acts as a template for the whole album. Jumping back and forth between gentle finger picking and lush orchestrations to loud drums and eardrum scratching bass, Actor is the complete fruition of Clarke's potential. Producer John Congleton gives the album an abrasive sound that is full while still allowing each instrument breathing room. While a song like "Your Lips Are Red" was too busy on Marry Me, "Actor Out Of Work" holds the same paranoia of the former but with brutal bursts of distorted keyboard backed by a steady, pounding drumbeat that furiously drives home Clarke's slam against a deceptive suitor. The processed distortion meets Disney film score is a technique popularized by The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, but whereas Steve Drozd's keyboards always had an artificial feel to it, the strings and woodwinds that flutter out of songs like "Back Rainbow" and "Just The Same But Brand New" actually sound like Whirlwind Heat walking through Sherwood Forest. In just under 40 minutes, Actor shows off a superb sound that makes St. Vincent one of the top artists to watch for in the next decade.
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