St. Vincent – Actor Out Of Work

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[rating:74/100]
Once again, St. Vincent (Annie Clark) shows off her magnificent flair for orchestration and production, as “Actor Out Of Work” is not driven by her voice, but by the intense, aggressive beats, horns, and fuzzy guitars behind it.

Fast-paced and quick, more hard-rocking than first single “The Stranger,” “Actor Out Of Work” uses a phenomenal, fuzzed-out guitar and horns melody that sounds right out of the James Bond score. When mixed with St. Vincent’s voice and “ooo-s,” the song works exceptionally. And that’s just the beginning of a song that lasts just over two minutes.

Once it hits the climax, it gets even cooler. Clark’s light, soft voice grows in the background quietly as she lets the creepy background choir do most of the heavy vocals for her, building, Arcade Fire-style, to one more fuzzy flourish as the song winds down. Another great track off of Clark’s upcoming album, Actor. Pitchfork once called St. Vincent a “disturbingly gifted talent,” but I think that with these first two singles we can cross the word “disturbing” out of that sentence- Clark’s music is now as peppy and uplifting as it is haunting.

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by Adam Offitzer on March 30, 2009 ‡ 0 reactions