St. Vincent is a woman and she has blessed (or cursed) us with her album “Strange Mercy.” It is a strange brew, indeed. The wacky side of the moon was mostly dark here, but there were a few lunarnating moments of entertainment. My song by song notes for ‘Strange Mercy” from St. Vincent are below.
“Chloe In The Afternoon”: A kook spending the afternoon jamming out with her keyboard in her doodad filled house. A lot of repeating is done in the song as opposed to singing. It actually took a while before I could understand any of the words she was saying at all. And then she gargles to end the song, making her mouth is sanitized having passed the crap off into my ears.
“Cruel”: A gallop beat with the soap opera orchestra jumping in complete with chimes and then some geetar all warped up and for some reason bringing Radiohead thoughts into my head. The song kind of escalates to being just shy of a dance track. I could imagine the singer whipping her hair back and forth, bouncing in the sunny park. Or could imagine it being sung by the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs instead.
“Cheerleader”: Clever lyrics, entertaining wordplay and the thump of “I, I, I, I” is good-good. Cool song, all the right quirk in all the right places. It’s a slow stop and go track.
“Surgeon”: A personal art girl story that makes me feel like I don’t belong listening to it
“Northern Lights”: Them lights are from the acid and all the noise you see moving in slow motion, yep, acid.
“Strange Mercy”: If there was a long depressing thoughts on life or perhaps lost romance moment in a Sonic the Hedgehog video game, this track would fit the scene.
“Neutered Fruit”: A little funk goes a little way, this song was weird-ish and then went the singing angels choir way of a several albums in Eels track.
“Champagne Year”: Not much going on with this one, sounds to sleep by, kook in the doodad house again.
“Dilettante”: Nothing to write home about, nothing to write here about.
“Hysterical Strength”: And another one bites the dust is what the opening reminded me of, if it were filtered through a disco club in a video game on a lil 8 inch black and white television. Yeah, we’re playing Sonic again! This song comes across like a warped cassette tape, the bizzaro fun isn’t cranked up loud enough.. Sometimes even bad weird is good and this is bad weird that could have been good-er.
“Year Of The Tiger”: A bit of the Atlanta Braves rally chant is woven into the beat, not exactly, but that is what it reminded me of. Another St. Vincent experiment that escaped the lab, not the kind of freakshow you want to pay to see, but free, can’t go wrong with free.