Music review – St. Vincent: Strange Mercy

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St. Vincent
Strange Mercy
4AD

From front to back, St. Vincent’s Strange Mercy is one of the strongest albums of the fall. With its Portishead-esque dubstep layered with strings, piano, guitar, and multi-talented ex-Polyphonic Spree member Annie Clark’s haunting voice, the album coheres to a specific sound that is personal and honed in. The songs progress from its light hearted beginning to its more resonant, driving and powerful conclusion. You can tell that Clark wrote these songs while in isolation in Seattle; its combination of feel-good pop and slow-driving bass with its dark and honest lyrics articulate and reflect on subjects few artists tackle. “Cheerleader” is a brutally candid and outrageously well-written track, though all the songs on the album more than caught my fancy.

Jocelynn Marsden
Contributor

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