St. Vincent: Actor

We've been pretty sure (for a while now), that Annie Clark's newest album as St. Vincent was going to be spectacular. And sure enough, Actor is being hailed as one of 2009's best, receiving accolades from virtually every major magazine and blog. Metacritic does a great job compiling ratings and reviews, so if you're interested, you should definitely comb through them, but allow me to summarize: the sweet/soft physical appearance and vocals stand in sharp contrast to the content of her songs. The word "Disney" is getting thrown around in a lot of the reviews; partly because some of the arrangements recall early Disney classics, and partly because many of those same classics used the superficial guise of "cartoon" to depict dark, heavy themes. The comparison to Actor is appropriate, and on essentially every song, the sound belies the story. With such rich musical arrangements accompanying the complex lyrics, this is an album that almost demands multiple listens. Lucky for us.


PS. Apparently, Lala may now require you to register with them so you can listen to certain songs. You can go here or here to read more about it if you want, but if you're asked to sign-up, just do it! It's the equivalent of signing up for something like Pandora, and it definitely shouldn't cost you anything (unless you want to start buying music from the site).