Albums to watch

MASSEDUCTION

St. Vincent

MASSEDUCTION

Annie Clark's fifth album of experimental indie pop, produced by Jack Antonoff

ADM rating[?]

8.4

Label
Caroline International P&D
UK Release date
06/10/2017
US Release date
06/10/2017
  1. 10.0 |   The Skinny

    The extremes of emotions are covered on Masseduction: the highs and lows of love, heartbreak and just general life. It is the closest we’ve ever been to Clark, and it’s probably the closest we’ll ever get
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  2. 10.0 |   DIY

    This is the moment that St Vincent enters the fabled realm reserved for the greats
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  3. 10.0 |   musicOMH

    Nothing less than an absolutely towering achievement
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  4. 10.0 |   A.V. Club

    It’s a record that wrests control from turmoil and believes that a different, better future is possible. It’s the best encapsulation of her vision to date, here fully under her control
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  5. 10.0 |   Evening Standard

    The 13 songs on her fifth album teeter between absurdity and allure, seduction and repulsion, as they refract warped power dynamics and strange desires
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  6. 10.0 |   Pretty Much Amazing

    An artist reframing the landscape, a reverse-chameleon who can’t camouflage, but transforms the world around her instead. “Pop” is the sound of a bubble bursting
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  7. 9.5 |   AU Review

    It’s not often an album comes along and has the ability to speak to you clearly, while also being enjoyable to listen to but St. Vincent has done it with MASSEDUCTION
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  8. 9.5 |   The Line Of Best Fit

    Defies explanation and critique, rendering the critic a dead weight in the dust of its ever-accelerating sucker-punch of ideas
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  9. 9.1 |   Consequence Of Sound

    One of the most complex, challenging, and fascinating figures in contemporary music
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  10. 9.0 |   All Music

    It's the work of an always savvy artist at her wittiest and saddest
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  11. 9.0 |   The Music

    This is St Vincent at her very best
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  12. 9.0 |   The Quietus

    Defies expectation, defies definition and defies the very idea that definition can exist. It’s an album detailing the mess of identity politics and power structures, and yet it hits serious cohesive highs
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  13. 9.0 |   Drowned In Sound

    A genuine masterpiece: complex, funny, sexy, bleak, uplifting, inspiring and enthralling from start to finish
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  14. 9.0 |   God Is In The TV

    This exceptional record showcases her formidable talents yet again
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  15. 9.0 |   The Digital Fix

    Confirms St Vincent as one of music's truly unique artists
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  16. 8.7 |   Paste Magazine

    Clark remains as unpredictable as ever, though there’s one thing fans will have gotten right: so far, at least, Annie Clark has proven incapable of writing anything less than a knockout pop song
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  17. 8.5 |   Under The Radar

    Has set the bar high for the rest of the indie rock universe and proves that St. Vincent is a truly unique talent that is both innovative and entertaining
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  18. 8.1 |   Earbuddy

    Another Annie Clark album that sounds absolutely fantastic. It’s an album of great propulsion that keeps the toes tapping and the hits coming
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  19. 8.0 |   American Songwriter

    Whether it’s Clark the badass shredder or Clark the sensitive soul we’re hearing, it’s always preferable to the distant conceptual figure she sometimes leans back on
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  20. 8.0 |   The FT

    Clark limits her virtuosic guitar-playing to touches and flourishes, but her singing has never been more expressive
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  21. 8.0 |   Rolling Stone

    A masterpiece of confrontational intimacy
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  22. 8.0 |   Exclaim

    Despite her growing reliance on synths, though, Clark certainly still knows how to rip a razor-sharp riff. Blasts of distorted guitar wizardry inject perfectly jarring anxious energy into tracks like centerpiece "Los Ageless" and "Fear the Future"
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  23. 8.0 |   Slant Magazine

    The increased tenderness of her vocal performances, coupled with more thematic emphasis on the push and pull of romantic relationships, offers a moving counterweight to St. Vincent's typically wry cultural commentary
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  24. 8.0 |   The Observer

    With giddy highs and dark lows, Annie Clark’s new album is the mischievous singer’s most direct yet
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  25. 8.0 |   Crack

    Really, who cares whether Masseduction represents the “real” Annie Clark or not; it’s definitely her most convincing performance yet
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  26. 8.0 |   The Arts Desk

    Clark gives us her all and lays herself bare as only she knows how – through a glass darkly, obscurely and archly – with rigid beats, pulsing synths and coruscating guitar work as her unbreachable castle walls
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  27. 8.0 |   NOW

    With an incisive take on the complexity of desire, anxiety and confusion, Annie Clark captures what it's like to live in this present
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  28. 8.0 |   Loud And Quiet

    A fierce, histrionic, riotous and deceptively beautiful record that, for the all the confessionalism, retains St Vincent’s alluringly enigmatic presence
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  29. 8.0 |   NME

    It might all be a bit Introductory Media Studies if ‘Masseduction’ wasn’t, firstly, so much fun and, secondly, so personal
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  30. 8.0 |   Mojo

    Dark, intense and utterly compelling record
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  31. 8.0 |   Q

    Clark is both an imperious pop cyborg and a woman revealing her most painful doubts. Print edition only

  32. 8.0 |   Uncut

    It's a bravura fusion of dense-art metal/pop and strutting baroque disco. Print edition only

  33. 8.0 |   The Guardian

    Abrasive, nuanced pop
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  34. 8.0 |   The 405

    An artistic statement, not merely just an album
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  35. 8.0 |   The Irish Times

    There are so many wonderful, reflexive layers and strands here that it’s sensory overload paradise
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  36. 7.6 |   Pitchfork

    Isn’t a pop album so much as a deeply, admittedly personal communique with a pop veneer
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  37. 7.0 |   PopMatters

    It might not be the preeminent masterpiece many are already making it out to be, but the album does have some great moments, and it bodes good things for the trajectory of St. Vincent’s ongoing career
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  38. 7.0 |   Sputnik Music (staff)

    St. Vincent's least consistent but most affecting album yet
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  39. 7.0 |   Spectrum Culture

    Despite the blurred line between Annie Clark and St. Vincent, she refuses to use her adopted persona as a crutch; through that mask, she has released the most personal and engaging album of her career
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  40. 7.0 |   Clash

    For all its merits, much of the chaos on ‘MASSEDUCTION’ tends to move rapidly in one ear and out the other, making it a pleasant but somewhat faceless affair
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  41. 6.0 |   No Ripcord

    Clark considers Masseduction her most open-hearted and confessional work, and to an extent, it is, except that it’s also neutered by searing layers of aural artifice
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