{"id":1678,"date":"2011-09-27T16:31:41","date_gmt":"2011-09-27T21:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=1678"},"modified":"2011-09-27T17:54:17","modified_gmt":"2011-09-27T22:54:17","slug":"st-vincent-strange-mercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2011\/09\/27\/st-vincent-strange-mercy\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Vincent: Strange Mercy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Stand-out follow-up with great instrumentation.<!--more--><br \/>\n<iframe width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Itt0rALeHE8?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\nI would listen to these tracks as simple instrumentals, and that is to say absolutely nothing against Annie Clark\u2019s magnificent voice. All I am saying is that these songs are strong enough to captivate me, even without her vocals soaring and dancing about. Clark, along with some rather talented (multi-)instrumentalists (Bobby Sparks, MacKenzie Smith, Daniel Hart, Brian LeBarton, Evan Smith, and Phil Palazzolo), crafted an innovative, involving, and powerful album that has the strength to stand out in the long (and short) run.<\/div>\n<div>Track-by-track review below.<\/div>\n<div>Reviewed by: Alex Applegate<\/div>\n<div>FCC warning: None.<\/div>\n<div>Label: 4AD<\/div>\n<div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">1. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Familiar ghostly vocals, strangled guitar riffs, sick finale<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">2. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Upbeat pop drumming, stifling lyrics, gnarly shredding, crescendoing synths, building a frenzy<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">3. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Synths that would sound at home on a Black Moth Super Rainbow album, more controlled chaos, power surges<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">4. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Interesting instrumentation, sweet strings, playful guitar fills, MOOG<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">5. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps this is the sound of the Aurora Borealis<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">6. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Catharsis, contemplation, and confidence<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">7. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Shimmering synths take this track up a level<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">8. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Resolute acceptance, maturely minimal beginnings<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">9. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Simple, but effective drums provide pleasing background to some killer guitar work<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">10. \u00a0\u00a0Cool composition, about as lo-fi as this album gets<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">11. \u00a0\u00a0Bright arrangement, heavy synths and guitars, heavenly and airy sounds<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stand-out follow-up with great instrumentation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4332,"featured_media":1679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3233,3230],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-charts-adds","category-new-music-rotation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/stvincent.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4332"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}