St. Vincent spots another freak in the audience

We’re giving it socks from the ankles down to Annie Clark (St. Vincent) when she takes a moment from seducing us with another dazzling stairway-to-hell guitar riff to address us directly. She had already welcomed her audience “one and all, the freaks, the dominated, and dominatrix” (Oh stop *blushes*) because she’s certain she knows us from bygone days.

“Didn’t you at one time dream of taking flight?”, she poses in her faint Texan drawl. “Young arms outstretched, empty pizza boxes attached to each one before making the leap then falling and grazing your knees?” We’ve entered Annie’s realm of universal connection. “Yeah, we just dreamt of pizza”, quipped the bloke behind me.

Ah, relief. The tension in this threat of twee finally punctured enabling us to get back to the main business of enjoying the tunes from a musical deviant and her impressive cast of collaborators. It’s all angular and robotic dancing consistent with the sounds generated from shoving fistfuls of genres (pop, jazz, cabaret, metal?) through a four-(wo)manned mincer. Seamless rows of off-kilter and discordant arrangements fall out the outer end, chopped and topped by virtuoso guitar from its inventive conductor dipping through her back catalogue.

It’s all maddeningly familiar but entirely fresh, delivered by the love-child of Edward Scissorhands and a geisha. As a virgin show-goer, you’re guaranteed to wake up the following morning with thumping synth riffs competing for airplay and wondering what the hell you just saw. Thoroughly dominated, then.

Standout tracks: Your Lips Are Red, Digital Witness, Birth in Reverse, and.. well, all of them, really.