Blog: State Magazine

Annie Clark’s third album as St. Vincent largely rests on the neck of her guitar. While Clark’s ability as a player who coaxes unorthodox sounds out of her six-strings has always been one of her strengths, Strange Mercy finds her shredding exact points and shapes through distortion. These shapes are wielded like other instruments - at times the guitar sounds like a wobbly proggy synthesizer, others a parping and unctuous brass horn, but rarely does the instrument ape standard rock histrionics (That said the rising caterwaul guitar notes in ‘Northern Lights’ have to be heard to be believed). [...]