St. Vincent: self-titled [LOMA VISTA/REPUBLIC]

Why you'll love it

This pressing comes in a gatefold jacket with embossed symbols on the front, a lyric insert and a download code. St. Vincent won the Grammy for Best Alternative Album.

This edition

• Gatefold jacket
• Embossed cover
• Lyrics included
• Download card included

About the album

Calling your fourth album after yourself is either a reset or a statement, and Annie Clark meant both. After making Love This Giant with David Byrne, she came back with a record that took his love of rhythm and brass, added her own wiry, serrated guitar, and pointed the whole thing squarely at life online. The result is her most direct and danceable set.

John Congleton produced, and every song is Clark's, as are the jagged, fuzzed-out guitar parts that give the record its bite. "Rattlesnake" opens on a synth line that slithers, "Birth In Reverse" is a jittery pop rocket, and "Digital Witness" struts on a horn riff about living for the screen. "Prince Johnny" and "I Prefer Your Love" show off her softer, aching side, and "Huey Newton" drifts in a haze before a heavy guitar breakdown, and "Every Tear Disappears" and "Psychopath" keep side B pulsing.

Its sharp, futuristic look, Clark on a throne with silver hair, still turns heads in the rack. The symbols on the cover are embossed, so this is the rare record you can appreciate with the lights off.

Also at Kops: more St. Vincent on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Loma Vista / Republic (cat# B0019906-01), the 2014 album.