Strange Mercy by St. Vincent

Engaging the darkness (rather than just acknowledging it) adds some flesh-and-blood humanity to an artist whose excellent output has nonetheless been marked by cold distance.

On Strange Mercy, she ditches Marry Me's naivety and Actor's ostentatious arrangements, boosts the inventive guitar playing, and ends up with her most potent and cathartic release yet.

This is an album that rockets toward you, ricochets through your emotions and finally decides to lay you down on the floor, headphones on, tumbling around like a blissed-out cat in the sun.

On Strange Mercy, Clark continues to sharpen and finetune her act, coming off bolder in her aesthetic, yet more immediate and intimate as a performer.

It’s this combination of unforced sonic gorgeousness and a refusal to settle for the obvious that puts Clark in a field of her own, and makes for a strange and wonderful record that shows no mercy in blowing your mind.

Strange Mercy achieves that sweeping goal, delivering on its promises, challenging thematically and intellectually, while also entertaining.

Clark is more divulgent of her true personal feelings than we’ve come to expect, and she’s created a dense collection of songs to reflect this atmosphere.

It may not be leaps and bounds ahead of previous St Vincent releases, but this is a rich and multi-faceted album to pay close attention to.

One of those albums that is so, so brilliant that have to be listen a thousand times to capture all the briliantism. Cheerleader is so perfect, that " I I I I I I I I I I (..)" stay in the air after listening, you cant understand why so perfect, so you listen again, and again, and again, and when you see, the light of the day is gone, and you are still in this music, without stop to listen, you just can't. The world is too small for her perfectionism and fantastic ideas, so give a space in you head for it, for her, and lost yourself in her voice, in her guitar, in her lyrics, in her world.

ambitious and innovative album, most of it is breath taking, simple melodies with crashing guitars and stunning arrangements, beautifully sung with challenging lyrics