The new St. Vincent burns in the dark
“You will be mine for eternity…”. So says St. Vincent with fiery determination in “Flea”the second preview of the seventh studio album “All Born Screaming,” out April 26. With three-time Grammy winner St.Vincent, avocals and all instruments except drums and bass, handled respectively by Dave Grohl and Justin Meldal-Johnsen, “Flea” is an expression of raw desire that manifests itself on a foundation of thunderous grooves and searing guitar figures. And it is a manifesto song of the new project. Accompanied by a lyric video showing behind the scenes of the “All Born Screaming” sessions, “Flea” reveals another dimension of the emotionally apocalyptic side of the album, following the “thrilling industrial sound” of previous single “Broken Man”.
“'All Born Screaming' is an invitation to challenge the limits of the possible and go beyond them,” explained the artist. Thanks also to the help of a very careful selection of friends and collaborators such as Rachel Eckroth, Josh Freese, Dave Grohl, Mark Guiliana, Cate Le Bon, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Stella Mozgawa and David Ralicke, this new work is an absolute representation of St. Vincent's vision. After two albums produced with Jack Antonoff, including the latest “Daddy's Home” in 2021, Annie Clark, this is her real name, decided to do things on her own. “All Born Screaming” is in fact the first album entirely self-produced by the singer-songwritera working process that allowed her to show herself without filters, putting on tape the whole world she had inside her. Proof of this is “Broken Man”, the first single from side A of the album. The song arrives like an avalanche ready to crash down on expectations and preconceptions and presents the project in a furious way, especially in the end, all accompanied by the video shot in Philadelphia in January and directed by Alex Da Corte, whose visuals complement its aesthetic.
“There are some places, inside us, that we can only reach if we cross the forest alone, to discover what our hearts have to say,” he said in a statement. In some early interviews you explained: “I needed to go deeper to find my sonic vocabulary. I like to think of this record as pop that talks a lot about heaven and hell, in a metaphorical sense. Which is appropriate, because sitting alone in a studio for so many hours I would say is a version of hell.” After taking inspiration from the '70s in “Daddy's Home”, the new album features “a lot of guitars” and analog synthesizers from the '70s and '80s. “It sounds urgent and psychotic, with an atmosphere of great intensity. Equal parts urgent and psychotic. It's high quality sound. On the last album I tackled difficult topics with very biting humor and wit. I would put on a wig, jump around, it was so much fun. This record is darker, harder. I would say it's my least fun record. There's nothing nice about it”, he anticipated.