Review in Retrospect: St. Vincent's Strange Mercy 10/10

"You're all legs / I'm all nerves" hints at neurosis embedded in Annie Clarke's third LP, Strange Mercy. From cheap sex ("Chloe in the Afternoon"), to a declaration of independence ("Cheerleader"), to comforting loved ones with lies ("Strange Mercy"), to the loss of youthful fearlessness ("Year of the Tiger"), Strange Mercy is looking everything face to face only to find one lost in the mess of the unusual.

"Bodies, can't you see what everyone wants from you? / If you could want that, too." Sung as if a ghost were haunting her fellow "Stepford Wives," these two lines perfectly sum up "Cruel." Common thought around housewives in the 50s and 60s is that they shuffled about like androids with real flesh, but the whole "real" thing was to conform to what others wanted. Now, where's the Strange Mercy in this? Do you find it strange to completely suppress your own desires for your family rather than there be mutual respect for different aspirations? If the whole idea of mutual respect has vanished, it might be time to find someone else.

Sex gets a couple of treatments in the album. Objectifying pleasure that yields no real intimacy ("Chloe in the Afternoon") and "Surgeon," which borrows a line from Marilyn Monroe's diary: "Best, finest surgeon / Come cut me open." Annie takes the sexual surgeon for the whole summer: "I spent the summer on my back / Another attack / Stay in just to get along, get along, get along." Both songs exude desperation for someone to heal them, but both fail. "Chloe in the Afternoon," a sonically visceral attempt to heal emotional pain, and "Surgeon," a far more haunting yet intense yearning for some lover to heal her.

The album fluctuates in and out of stark revelations to being utterly flabbergasted.

Confusion reaches its peak with "Stange Mercy." "Oh, little one, I'd tell you good news that I don't believe. / If it would help you sleep / Strange mercy." It is critical to note that Annie Clarke's father was in prison for a white collar crime, and that this desire to soothe her younger sibling with lies is probably the most autobiographical Ms. Clarke gets. Instead of good news, Annie is pissed: "If I ever meet the dirty policeman who roughed you up / No, I, I don't know what." These lines are hammered in the music. So much for good news. Hopefully, the little one won't find out.

Nostalgia: "When I was young / Coach called me the tiger." Soon, she admits her current state: "Living in fear of the year of the tiger." 2010, the year her father was sentenced to 12 years in prison, led Clarke into a deep state of depression. She recalls that being the worst year of her life, and one can really hear it: The music is downtempo, and the harmonies linger in a monotone, solemn state. Clarke asserts, "Oh, America, can I owe you one?" which, in a sense, is blaming American capitalism for her father's descent into white collar crime. The music accents every downbeat and crescendos to "Living in fear of the year of the tiger."

Strange Mercy most likely serves as a catharsis for Annie's impossible feat to reconcile the irreconcilable. Musically, there's heavy distortion and an explosion of contradictory sounds of chaos and control. With all this mixed, it seems to be a clear frustration with reality. All in all, this is Ms. Clarke's finest album to date. The texture is cohesive from song to song, yet plenty of variety is heard. Conceptually, the friction of Strange Mercy is executed with the utmost honesty. Annie Clarke holds nothing back.