St Vincent ' 'Marry Me' (Beggars Banquet) Released 03/09/07

St Vincent, better known as 24 year old Annie Clark, is a multi-instrumentalist and former member of The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens’ touring band; and September brings about the release of ‘Marry Me’, a soothing collection of sonic poetry whose absorbing narratives are complimented perfectly by sultry vocals dripping with suggestive imagery. Bursting with a simplistic unabashed honesty and performed with equal passion, St Vincent has perfected the art of producing intelligent niche pop for a similar audience. Delicate in design yet solid in construction and combining tongue in cheek maturity with peculiar childlike qualities, St Vincent manages to shape her uniquely familiar sound around a series of filmic experiences and notions, building her own cinematic sequence frame by frame.

Her video diary begins with ‘Now, Now’ a track that immediately puts you at peace and at the same time establishes her unmistakable identity through floating crystalline vocals that evoke an almost religious feel through completely secular subject matter. Strong and building from chilled out mellowness into fits and bursts of guitars it’s a cracking opener and sure to be a pretty damn special album. Next up is ‘Jesus Saves, I Spend’ and from the first two tracks it’s clear that the minimal and expertly crafted instrumentation is extremely well thought out and does wonders in drawing out and accentuating Annie Clark’s gloriously glowing voice. There’s a distinct and delicate fragility throughout, but an undeniable and over-riding sense of purpose at the same time. Despite the apparent purity that the album harbours, there is also a hidden and underlying thread of darkness, through the likes of ‘Your Lips Are Red’ and ‘Paris Is Burning’. Its by no means sinister but tension is created and sustained with the help of ominous drums, edgy strings, bursts of punctuating guitar yet all the time laid behind an enchanting piano which is a welcome constant of the album; and brought to prominence in the stunning yet short lived ‘We Put A Pearl In The Ground’.

Soaring and dipping, no matter how hard you might try, there’s no escaping that vocal, one of the best to be laid to music in a long, long time, which if for some reason isn’t immediately apparent, certainly will be by the end of ‘All My Stars Aligned’ which is helped along through countless majestic piano indulgences. Wordplay is another of St Vincent’s best assets. Lyrically quirky, subtle and incredibly intelligent, the title track’s line “Let’s do what Mary and Joseph did…without the kid”, ‘Landmines’; “I’m crawling through landmines just to know where you are” and ‘Human Racing’s’ off the cuff references to Romeo and Juliet are stunning to say the least and mark Annie Clark as a wordsmith to be reckoned with. Her lyrics also appear to serve as a form of self-help therapy without excluding all but a select few. ‘The Apocalypse Song’ in particular with its busy, pulsating, heartbeat strings underlines a need for her creative output but also as a mutual sharing of ideas. Concluding the album is ‘What Me Worry’ and intentional or not casts off all the doubts that the rest of ‘Marry Me’ may contain. It doesn’t so much dismiss life’s hiccups, as shrug them off with, among many, the line “Life is like banquet food, A pleasure to peruse”. It might not seem like much on paper, but like the rest, when sung with that voice, it’s a listening delight and see’s the album spectacularly on its way.

The end result? ‘Marry Me’ is a naturally mesmerizing debut of instantly unforgettable proportions that should stand the test of time. Its complicated sensitivity and exquisite design can creep up and envelop you, but more importantly it’s an album that you can talk to, cry to, drink to and so much more. Its only flaw? It leaves you wanting much, much more.