Get the latest gossip
St Vincent: All Born Screaming review – the unmasking of a great American songwriter
Are we finally seeing the real Annie Clarke? Replacing alter egos with raw immediacy, she delivers one of her best albums: restlessly inventive and packed with ideas
The cover of St Vincent’s previous album, Daddy’s Home, featured Annie Clarke in character: heavy eye-make up, ripped stockings, blond wig – the “benzo beauty queen” who haunted a number of songs. You’re equally likely to encounter a sudden burst of soft rock, some Zapp-ish electro-funk, a neatly done exploration of reggae’s weird sense of space or an epic Baba O’Riley synth arpeggio as you are a thunderous industrial rhythm. For all the sonic uproar, the melodies are impossible to miss, and so is the personality she imprints across the album: troubled but self-aware, wryly funny, the doubts and fears and worries she expresses completely at odds with the confidence of her approach to risk-taking, shape-shifting music.
Or read this on The Guardian