St. Vincent – Strange Mercy

On Strange Mercy, Annie Clark—better known as St. Vincent—steps into a sharper, stranger light. Released in 2011, her third album finds a haunting middle ground between vulnerability and confrontation, intimacy and artifice. The result is an ambitious and emotionally complex work that marked a turning point in her career.

Gone are the ornate orchestrations of Marry Me and the theatrical flourishes of Actor. In their place: piercing guitar lines, icy synths, and rhythms that lurch and twitch with tension. Clark’s songwriting becomes more direct, even confrontational, without losing her flair for abstraction. The opening track “Chloe in the Afternoon” sets the tone with its distorted riffs and cryptic lyricism, while “Cruel” marries deceptively sweet melodies to lyrics that hint at emotional neglect and disillusionment. It’s pop music with a blade hidden beneath its dress.

Pitchfork named it “Best New Music,” praising Clark’s “inventive guitar playing” and calling the album her “most potent and cathartic release yet.” Paste Magazine highlighted its unpredictability: “Track after track leads you one way... then pulls the rug out from under you.” Sputnikmusic echoed the sentiment, calling it “complex, unconventional, and utterly captivating.”

But perhaps what makes Strange Mercy endure is its emotional core. Beneath the art rock armor, there’s a deep sense of ache—songs like “Cheerleader” and the title track peel back layers of performance to reveal moments of raw confession. It’s an album about identity, power, and the messy cost of keeping it all together.

Beautifully strange and mercilessly precise, Strange Mercy is the sound of an artist pushing her own limits—and inviting the listener to do the same.

Reviews

There’s so much going on musically on Strange Mercy that it could be easy to overlook Clark's growth as a songwriter, but “Year of the Tiger” boasts fully realized storytelling as well as a melody that would do Joni Mitchell or Carole King proud. Full of great lyrics and great playing, Strange Mercy is St. Vincent's most reflective and most audacious album to date, and Clark remains as delicately uncompromising an artist as ever. Allmusic