St. Vincent- Strange Mercy(2011)

St. Vincent- Strange Mercy

Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, has always been what a football scout would call a "5 tools prospect." She has it all: talent, songwriting skills, an absolutely stellar voice. She is also a total stone cold fox:


I mean Jesus H. Christ. That is the kind of girl who you fall in love with. But she wouldn't love you back. In the end, she would rip your heart right out of your chest, bite it in half and then spark up a cigarette.

Yet despite all of this incredible talent, Ms. Clark never delivered on it. Most of her musical output has been under-achieving at best. Take 2009's Actor. A handful of brilliant Pop songs mixed in with copious amounts of forced quirkiness and disingenuous artsy garbage(no doubt her time with the Shithead, aka Sufjan Stevens, had something to do with this.) The whole thing felt unnatural, and Ms. Clark seemed forced into a box too small and confining for her obvious abilities. The effort was there, but it was wasted effort on a project not worth the time. It was starting to look like Ms. Clark would never be more than a competent, but mostly inessential, Indie Pop Gurrl who would never compare to her contemporaries. But Strange Mercy finally sees Ms. Clark deliver on her talent, in about the biggest way possible.

Strange Mercy is a lean, mean Pop machine, the perfect vehicle for Ms. Clark's sultry voice, which oozes pure sex appeal while never once sounding slutty or stupid. Thankfully free of worthless ambient Noise, unappealing Freak Folk and forced quirkiness, Strange Mercy is all about the hooks, and boy are there a lot of hooks: not one single song gives you any room to breathe before you are singing along with another perfect chorus or flawless verse. Take "Cruel," a Pop fused Indie Rock tune that will get your ass moving, or the Funky and steamy "Dilettante," which has Ms. Clark winking and nodding as she sings "Your like the party I heard through a wall/Invite me." Strange Mercy has seen Ms. Clark go from fairly standard Indie Gurrl is flat out sex symbol, and it is an aesthetic that works wonders for her and her music. Ms. Clark also knows when to turn things down a bit for more somber, softer hitting moments, like the title track, a haunting Electro-Rock ballad that gives us the best pure vocal performance on the record, or the whisper quiet "Champange Year," a spaced out Electro-Pop chill out from all the Funky Indie Pop that most of the record delivers.

Indie Pop has become so ironic over the years, with more and more artists going for "Zooey Deschanel" faux-awkwardness, it is such a breath of fresh air to hear an artist this confident in her music and her lyrics. Confidence. That is the key word here. Strange Mercy is an album from a very confident woman who has finally found her voice. This is such a massive improvement from Ms. Clark's previous work, it becomes difficult to quantify. What I can easily say is this: Strange Mercy is about as massive, as gorgeous and as perfectly made as a Pop album can get. Strange Mercy has completely dominated my listening cycle since the very first note, and will continue to do so for a very long time. It doesn't get any better than this people. Strange Mercy, and Ms. Clark, will dominate your dreams with this one.

Rating: 10/10

The Antlers- Burst Apart(2011)

The Antlers- Burst Apart

Following up on perfection is impossible.

That was the task that Brooklyn Indie Pop purveyors The Antlers had when they had to release a follow up to 2009's Hospice. Hospice was, for all intents and purposes, perfect: one of the most powerful, inventive, heartfelt and sincere musical releases of the decade, a literal and hyperbole-free tour-de-force. With it's heart wrenching sincerity and inescapable hooks, Hospice represented a massively high plateau for the band to try and reach with any follow up album. Burst Apart was doomed from the very beginning.

And that grim foreshadowing has indeed come to fruition, as Burst Apart fails in every conceivable way to match Hospice. Instead of an amazing ode to life and love, we get 10 Indie Pop tracks, no more and no less. The whole thing is a very standard and somewhat lifeless affair. Which is not to say Burst Apart is incompetent: the band understand how to write an instrumental Pop song, and each track is a well made and sturdy piece. So is your table, and I doubt your table got you very excited today. Burst Apart exists, but the question becomes does anyone care?

There are a few tracks that float up above the mediocrity of the whole affair. "Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out" is by far the strongest track and is a fantastic mix of lightning fast guitars and ridiculously catchy verses, while "Hounds" has that haunting quality that made Hospice such a masterpiece. But most of the rest of the album is severely nondescript: The Antlers are incognito, much to the listeners chagrin.

Burst Apart is, for lack of a better word, boring. It comes and goes without any real staying power, and even if the band had not released Hospice, it would be hard to find a lot of love for this record. It is not bad, just functional. Like a toothbrush, or your crappy car in High School.

Rating: 6/10

Feist- Metals(2011)

Feist- Metals

There is not a more powerful and distinct set of pipes in all of Indie music than those possessed by Leslie Feist, or know by most as only Feist. Ms. Feist has without a doubt one of the most beautiful and insanely powerful voices to have ever been recorded. But her Siren-like vocals also stand apart from most of her contemporaries for their uniqueness: the slight rattle and throttle she gives every note makes her voice stand out in a sea of incredible female singers. And she has ridden those golden vocal chords to the top of her profession, while becoming one of the most recognizable and beloved Indie stars in the world.

Metals is Ms. Feist's newest release, and it sticks closely to the sound she established with 2007's brilliant The Reminder: lo-fi, quiet and dream like Pop songs that act as vehicles for her voice to soar. Whether it is a bit of horns and violin on "The Bad In Each Other," sugary sweet instrumental Pop in "The Circle Married The Line" or smokey, run down bar themes "Anti-Pioneer," Ms. Feist shows that she can sing the holy hell out of any song, any genre and any emotion. Metals somewhat lo-fi production also does wonder for the album: compared to many of her squeaky clean contemporaries, Ms. Feist is the one who still seems to be recording at the local studio instead of the multi-million dollar music factory.

There really is no comparison to the sheer power of emotion that Ms. Feist unleashes with each note. The only one I can honestly make is to the legendary Joan Baez, although whether that is unfair to either party has been difficult for me to assess. Her voice is one that must be heard, but how much enjoyment you get from Metals will be on how much you enjoy amazing vocal performances. Ms. Feist is a singer who can match the best, but her song-writing is rarely as adventurous as her voice. Which is not to say she is generic: any songwriter who has the guts to write a pop song driven by the banjo(as she did with "1234") is not one who understands the meaning of the word safe. It is more that Metals is very similar to The Reminder musically, and The Reminder was very similar to Open Season. Ms. Feist has been playing with the same instruments and similar arrangements for 3 albums now, and it is clear that she may lack the conviction to take the massive changes that artists like Bjork and Joanna Newsom have been willing to make. It doesn't take much away from Metals, but it bares mentioning.

I was hoping for a slightly more adventurous release from Ms. Feist, but my issues are nearly pointless in the face of the overwhelming beauty of her voice. Metals works because Ms. Feist simply won't allow it to fail: she will merely carry the whole damn record on the back of her Siren Call. We should all be so blessed as to listen to, and appreciate, this voice that will not be silent.

Rating: 8.5/10

Bon Iver- Bon Iver(2011)

Bon Iver- Bon Iver

It must be just awesome to be Justin Vernon.

The figure head and main creative force behind Bon Iver, which contrary to the various promotional photos is not a solo Vernon project but a band featuring Michael Noyce, Mathew McCaughn and Sean Carey(who released a solid solo album this year), Vernon is a huge fucking deal. And the thing is, he always has been: this meteoric rise to the top was destined since high school, when Vernon fronted the band Mt. Vernon, whose music was utterly fantastic and was miles ahead of anything you would expect a band whose members were still taking Algebra 2 classes to ever pull off. He then fronted deYarmored Edison, which released a few critically acclaimed albums before Vernon left for solo stardom. It is debatable how much influence Vernon had on the song-writing process at this time, since the rest of dYE would go on to form the incredible Megafaun, but regardless Vernon used his previous experience as a stepping stone into a log cabin to write For Emma and become the Indie darling he is today while kicking it with Kanye West. The whole process reeks of an ego almost as big as the hype, if not bigger, but then again it takes a serious ego to make an album like Bon Iver.

A complete departure from the Iron and Wine-influenced For Emma, Vernon has taken the band in an entirely new direction without any real warning. Synth, electronic music and electric guitars, drums: Vernon bought out the local music shop and jammed it all into the recording studio. Yet it speaks to Bon Iver that despite this new found love all things musical, it remains one of the softest, most sincere releases this year. Ego aside, Vernon just fucking gets it. As here proves here, he can out Dream Pop the Dream Pop-players in one album, with no real practice at is. He remains an idiot-savant for all things hook infused and beautiful. Vernon remains one of the best singers in Indie music: his ability to move effortlessly from a powerful baritone to a charming, if off-kilter, falsetto remains unmatched by any singer in Indie music. This is displayed perfectly in "Minnesota, WI," while the floating guitars of "Holocene" evoke Vernon's criminally over-looked solo album Hazeltons.

I was more than ready slap a 9.5 or even a 10 on this album as it winded down. I was flat out blown away how easily Bon Iver had transitioned from Freak Folk to Dream Pop, and started musing my writings as the song "Beth/Rest" began blasting from my headphones.

I had to pause the record, for I could not stop laughing.

In another absolutely wonderful and wholly misguided effort of the ego, Vernon crapped the bed with "Beth/Rest." The synth will instantly cause you to sing "I can feel it coming in the air tonight..." should be a deadly foreshadowing of the shitstorm that is to come, but when Vernon's auto-tuned moans come groaning over the top of them, it is time to board up the windows and invest in some plastic gloves. It takes serious balls, and frankly a belief that anything you write will be loved automatically, to make a song like "Beth/Rest" and use it as the closing track! It is like Vernon took us on a magical journey we would never forget, only to end at a 65 and over singles bar, complete with slow dancing. No doubt "Beth/Rest" will make it into some High School proms DJ rotation, but for the rest of us this is completely insane and a serious atmosphere killer.

The closing track is a big deal on just about any record, but the way Bon Iver ends is a little inexcusable in my book. This album still has some of the most finely crafted songs of the year, and I would still recommend it to anyone. Just make sure to hit stop before Phil Collins starts his set.

Rating: 8/10