St. Vincent - Actor [Album]

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May 5, 2009, 03:08 AM

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There are albums out there with heavy experimentation machinery that lacks a lubricating coat of scintillating lyricism and the result often falls short of a meek, polished finish e.g. *cough* Handsome Furs *cough* Face Control *cough*. It is without a doubt that the former Polyphonic Spree member and Sufjan Steven’s touring partner, Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) has studied and grasped the formulas and sonic hypothesises to crafting a well-oiled machine. But something doesn’t quite add up here in Clark’s much-lauded machine, however shiny and awe-inspiring because at times, the feel is oddly metallic to the ears and remotely cold to the heart.

Don’t get me wrong though, the fact that I used words like ‘shiny’ and ‘awe-inspiring’ is a testament to how incredible Actor is – clever, off-kilter and deviceful. It is stunning to see Clark working within the reigns of the genre so extensively and fearlessly, whilst all this time managing to hold her own distinctive, idiosyncratic sound. In this sophomore album, her inspiration draws from the whimsical (Disney scores from Snow White and Sleeping Beauty), the post-modern (Pierrot le Fou), the violent (Badlands), and the disturbed (Picnic at Hanging Rock). On the moments that worked, all these come together in a dazzling fashion where the deepest, darkest depths of Clark’s mind was also revealed.

Such is the case in the opener, “The Strangers”. The acoustic slides wonder through a forest of choral drones before the song crackles to a rip-roaring fuzz storm. It perfectly introduces a brutal, tantalising twist to the initial fable-like sojourn which the song eventually loops back to. This is the kind of opener that people can only dream of having and unpredictability is clearly what Clark is going for. Track number four, “Actor Out of Work”, is a zesty pop candy bearing teeth that bite, and with more of that distortion work seeping into “Marrow”, where its dulcet tones frisks like an animated, folklorist creature. In “Black Rainbow”, Clark brings in piano staccatos and cello strokes; all of which crescendos majestically, bearing a cunning resemblance to The Beatles’ "A Day in the Life", save for the missing final E major chord.

Clark is as good a melodic constructionist as an astute lyricist. With a title like “Laughing With a Mouth Full of Blood”, you know that it can’t go wrong. Delve into the song and you’re probably right – “I can't see the future, but I know it's watching me”. Clark’s deliciously twisted prose lurks in every corner of the album, and the feeling is like being stalked by a mysterious, intangible wickedness that won’t go away. So you're wondering: given the high-standing merits, why I am not enjoying this album as much as I should?

Maybe Actor is just too upfront in its execution, too laddered, with too many ideas and orchestration that Clark doesn’t know where or when to stop; she seemed to have forgotten that a little restraint could go a long way – something which could beget miraculous payoffs, like Bon Iver’s beautifully sublime "For Emma, Forever Ago". The only hint of it comes in the closer, “The Sequel” – one that will most probably fall under the radar due to its apparent ‘inertness’ – where beneath the skin of the song lies a sea of seething, intense rage threatening to implode but never does; the song ends quietly, creeping away into the shadows. It’s a shame that subtlety is exemplified in just one song.

The real victims of the album’s ‘overdone-ness’ are the mediocre songs of which, standing at just a mere handful, felt like an eternal prosaic nightmare. The sole saving grace in “Save Me from Myself” is the sudden electric arpeggios midway through the song as it drowns in endless phlegmatic hums of ‘save me’ s. This is the point where you feel a disconnection with Actor and Clark’s voice, for the first time, and it starts to come off as a clipped, clinical tedium of a bore.

Maybe Actor needs to just be more effortless - at some point I began to wonder if Clark produces these Björk-esque avant-garde songs because she really wants to, or because she simply has to. You know the saying, art for art’s sake, and it is songs like “The Neighbors” and “The Party” which really beg that question. Or maybe, like what she wrote in “The Strangers”, the mad genius just wants to ‘paint the black hole’ of an album ‘blacker’. At this point, you might find this review to be as paradoxical as the album itself, but that is a just illustration of my love/hate relationship for it.

So the question remains: does the good outweigh the bad in Actor?

For this, I would like to paraphrase a line from “Actor Out of Work” - I think I love it, I think I’m madb ut I do take comfort in the knowing that I’m not the only mad one around.

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