By 2007, with the release of her album Marry Me, the gifted Texan Annie Clark had become St.Vincent, and her alter ego went on to embody different profiles of singer and guitar heroine: both feminist and androgynous sex symbol. With Daddy’s Home, her previous album, the musician and singer perhaps brought this theatricality full circle. We’re back, temporarily at least, on Annie Clark’s side, closer to her own eclecticism and true identity as a human being. Closer to the fundamental things of her own existence, more connected to the most visceral feelings, more raw, without sumptuousness, St.Vincent here offers more conceptual diversity from a straightforward approach in which she highlights her great abilities as a singer, instrumentalist and director. All Born Screaming is about tragic death, the superficiality of relationships perverted by money, lechery, disillusionment with love and so on. Not sure this album will revive St.Vincent, whose essential cycle is behind us. Musically, she delves into post-punk, new wave, funk-rock, chamber pop (with brass and reeds), electro… but doesn’t shake up anything we already know about her or the references she draws on. This is a good album, perhaps opening the door to real reinvention, which should satisfy her base but probably won’t attract new fans.
