Review Summary: St. Vincent's Marry Me is a beautiful, surprising album that employs unending subtlety and sincerity to create an original musical experience. As the man who introduced Annie Clark to me put it, "Marry me St. Vincent, Marry me St. Vincent. I'll be so good
When a good friend of mine told me to flick on the T.V. and check out an artist called St. Vincent, I had no idea what to expect. What I discovered was an amazing multi-instrumentalist who offered something both beautiful and haunting. The stunning Annie Clark, stage-name St. Vincent, plays and sings a unique style of alternative rock that defies expectations and intrigues the adept listener.
St. Vincent’s debut album is entitled Marry Me. With eleven radically different tracks and a seemingly endless imagination, St. Vincent conveys her musical mind through subtle guitars, string instruments, and her soothing, “warbling” voice. Her lyrics, while not overly cryptic, are sung with such sincerity and thoughtfulness that one cannot help but being hooked into Clark’s ways of thinking. The poignant messages of “The Apocalypse Song” and the historic imagery of “Paris is Burning” are just some lyrical examples of the uniqueness of this album.
The music on Marry Me is shockingly well layered and executed. I find myself having trouble searching for a word (or set of words for that matter) to describe the ambience created through the many different instruments regularly used in these songs. “Your Lips are Red,” especially the live performance (check it out for sure), is so simplistic and minimalistic that it honestly boggles the mind how St. Vincent conveys so much feeling and energy through a single repeated guitar note and a mysterious vocal incantation. A recurring electric guitar definitely stands out amongst the more classical instruments, but one of the most remarkable facets of this album is how subtle everything is. Clark’s voice is definitely the loudest instrument, and all else feels like a supplement, which is strange since there is so much instrumentation going on.
St. Vincent clearly has an unfathomable concept of music and artistry that she can create something original that requires much enjoyment and analysis. I was caught off guard when I first listened to St. Vincent, and I recommend Marry Me to anyone who wants to listen to something brilliant, subtle, exciting, relaxing, and above all, artful.
