Actor is a uniquely potent cocktail of sounds and moods that’ll get you hooked, fast.
What makes Actor an honest-to-God good record—not just a dreamy one—is the way that Clark can use such a simple formula to get such an engaging range of textures.
For all the darkness of Actor's concerns ... it remains an exceptionally pleasurable album to listen to.
Actor pushed St. Vincent onto a bigger, grander stage.
Actor does a superior job of polarizing its moods, making them all the more potent when they reach their swell.
Actor represents a more defined and daring side of St. Vincent, a side that is rather enticing.
It's the kind of album that requires your full attention, if you dip in and out you'll get lost in it and wonder what on earth is going on. But if you leave it to do it's work, it can become a magical fantasia, strange, but magical.
Actor marks no huge departures her work on Marry Me, but it still manages to constantly surprise, always meshing the earthen with the industrial in strange and compelling ways.
This is like if pop music was made by an alien. It has structures and melodies that are pop to a T, but they're presented in a way that's off slightly. It's like stumbling through the dark, trying to make your way out of it with little to no information. Scary, but in a really cool way.
After a stellar debut record Marry Me, Annie Clark as St. Vincent begins to complicate her music with contrasting emotions and continuously elaborate and dense musical accompaniment. At times serene, at others sinister, St. Vincent finds a way to mesh these contrasts into a less experimental but no less exceptional second album.
Actor was heavily inspired by the kind of massive orchestral arrangements one would find in a Disney film, which Clark used as a medium to find her humanity after long ... read more
There must be something really interesting off camera that she’s staring at
FIREEEE. While I find her debut to be a teeensssy tinnnny bit more consistent, Actor is still unbelievably good for a sophomore record. It’s in the same realm as her first album but it’s just more great songs, like I’m not complaining. The one main difference I did notice is that shows moving from Bjorkisms to Fiona Appleisms lmfao. Obviously that’s not all that defines this but it’s ... read more
St Vincent - Actor ★★★★★
Well i think i left the best for last… Actor is definitely my favourite St Vincent album, the guitars are so freaking addictive and bland, Annie’s voice is so theatrical - matching the album’s narrative - and vibrating, while *that* *production*!!! So nostalgic and radiant.
⧽ Best: All.
one of the best sophomore albums ever delivered, production goes crazy, the violins make me feel like I'm on a horror movie about to be killed, all the emotions floating throughout this project makes me levitate
st vincent !!!!!
1 | The Strangers 4:04 | 92 |
2 | Save Me from What I Want 3:35 | 86 |
3 | The Neighbors 3:30 | 89 |
4 | Actor Out of Work 2:15 | 91 |
5 | Black Rainbow 4:11 | 89 |
6 | Laughing With a Mouth of Blood 3:01 | 90 |
7 | Marrow 3:24 | 93 |
8 | The Bed 3:43 | 85 |
9 | The Party 4:05 | 94 |
10 | Just the Same But Brand New 5:24 | 92 |
11 | The Sequel 1:53 | 81 |
#2 | / | Drowned in Sound |
#5 | / | Slant Magazine |
#10 | / | NPR |
#12 | / | Stereogum |
#13 | / | Consequence of Sound |
#13 | / | Pitchfork |
#16 | / | A.V. Club |
#16 | / | Beats Per Minute |
#17 | / | No Ripcord |
#21 | / | Cokemachineglow |