Starting with
St. Vincent's self-titled 2014 album,
Annie Clark's artistic progression could be best described as a sharpening: Her sounds grew crisper and more angular, her lyrics ever more pointed. This approach peaked on
MASSEDUCTION, which reflected a white-knuckle grip on image and identity in its high-definition pop. Control, or lack of it, is also a vital element on
Daddy's Home. Using her father's return from jail for white-collar crime as a jumping-off point,
Clark explores moral grey areas on songs that are as diffuse as her past few albums were taut. Her musical world-building remains as impressive as ever: Drawing on early-'70s sounds introduced to her by her father, she pays homage to a more permissive time as she traces the best and worst things carried through the generations.
Clark's version of the '70s is filled with so many allusions it should have footnotes; alongside the bubbling Wurlitzers and Mellotrons, she name-drops John Cassavetes and Candy Darling. While the swaggering single "Pay Your Way in Pain" pays homage to
David Bowie's "Fame" and "Live in the Dream" is a swirling tribute to
Pink Floyd, not all the references are cooler than cool. On "My Baby Wants a Baby," which finds the song's protagonist admitting they want creative accomplishment more than a child,
Clark borrows the melody from
Sheena Easton's "9 to 5 (Morning Train)" (another song about the obligations of relationships) and a spangly sitar-mimicking guitar last heard on a
B.J. Thomas single.
Hearing
Clark try on the album's bell bottoms and leather vest vibe is entertaining, but though the musical lineage of
Daddy's Home may be clearer than on any of her previous work, the same can't be said of its lyrics. With the notable exception of "Somebody Like Me"'s vulnerability,
Clark's songwriting remains emotion-adjacent instead of directly confessional. She delivers the album's tenderest songs in the second person ("...At the Holiday Party'') or to long-gone icons ("Candy Darling"). On the wry title track, she brings a little levity to the situation while pondering its deeper ramifications ("Where can you run when the outlaw's inside you?"), continuing the concealing and revealing at which she's always excelled.
Clark also revisits her own artistic past as well as her musical and familial influences. She's not mellowing with age -- "Down"'s brittle revenge-funk proves otherwise -- but the album is defined by its introspective tracks like "The Melting of the Sun"'s slow-motion tribute to female truth-tellers like Joan Didion,
Marilyn Monroe,
Nina Simone, and
Tori Amos that also features some of
Clark's most inspired guitar playing, and "The Laughing Man," a sardonic ballad that recalls
Actor's Disneyfied dystopian reveries. Like the albums of the era it was inspired by,
Daddy's Home takes time to unfold in listeners' imaginations. It's much more of a mood than anything else in her body of work, but its hazy reconciliation of the good and bad of the past makes it as an uncompromising statement from her as ever. ~ Heather Phares