St. Vincent impresses with self-titled release

Photo by Moses, via Wikimedia Commons

Alexandre Nunez/Contributing Writer 

“St. Vincent” is the self-titled fourth studio album by American musician St. Vincent. The first time I heard of St. Vincent was on Guitar Moves, a show on YouTube hosted by Matt Sweeney where the viewer gets to see a private intimate conversation about guitars, music, life, and craft while at the same time watching Sweeney and his guest rip through licks and guitar riffs and discuss the influences that define their sound.

There she was, this pretty young girl with her wild dyed blonde hair, in a rather appealing tight blue dress, and with this cheap looking axe around her shredding through some nasty licks. If Tim Burton were a guitar player in a band his name would’ve been St. Vincent. She is a sonic master who could put someone like The Edge from U2 on constant alert.

Yes, The Edge, there is someone out there creating a sound you still haven’t come across. She clearly has a jazz influence in her style which makes it very interesting because jazz chords can sometimes be strange sounding, but she has a niche with finding the even weirder jazz chords out there. Plus, she’s into Dr. Dre and all that is good hip hop. Mix all that in this genius mind of hers and you get St. Vincent.

Coming off from that, words can’t even begin to explain collaboration with Talking Heads lead man David Byrne. One word to describe St. Vincent’s fourth album is tight. Tight production, tight sound, extremely tight lyrics which stands out the most, and some tight solos that I wish there were a bit more of. But I can’t complain and I’m not going to because this album is just crammed with really great songs.

The fuzz is there, the outer space melodies are there and the vivid and smart lyrics which will have your imagination and ears on a rollercoaster are there. It is like St. Vincent said, “a party record you could play at a funeral.”

She’s just as weird as any of your other current pop stars, she’s got the strange hair, the completely out there outfits, but she’s probably the most talented of all of them. No, I take that back, she is the most talented of all of them.

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