St. Vincent, aka Annie Clark, will be returning in April with her follow-up to 2021’s “Daddy’s Home,” and as looks evident from the new album’s title, “All Born Screaming,” things may be a bit more hard-edged than last time. The album arrives April 26, via a new label imprint for St. Vincent, Virgin Music Group.
It’s St. Vincent’s first self-produced album, following a run of two albums with producer Jack Antonoff that included 2017’s “Masseduction.”
A new single, ““Broken Man,” arrived Thursday in tandem with the announcement, with a video directed by Alex Da Corte, who also shot the album cover imagery. A press statement described the video, shot in Philadelphia in January, as reflecting “the gauntlet of emotional wreckage that is side one of‘All Born Screaming.'”
Cate Le Bon is the album’s one billed featured guest, on the concluding title track. The list of players on the album also includes such heavy rock hitters as Dave Grohl and Josh Freese, along with Rachel Eckroth, Mark Guiliana, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Stella Mogzawa and David Ralicke.
In an explanation of going the self-production route, Clark said in an announcement statement, “There are some places, emotionally, that you can only get to by taking the long walk into the woods alone — to find out what your heart is really saying,”Clark says.“It sounds real because it is real.”
Clark had further described the new album in a recent interview with Mojo, before the album title or lineup were announced. “I needed to go deeper in finding my own sonic vocabulary,” she told the magazine. “I like to think of [the record] as post-plague pop, it’s a lot about heaven and hell – the metaphorical kinds. Which is appropriate, because sitting alone in a studio for that many hours I would say is a version of hell.”
She further told Mojo that the new record, which is marked by the sound of analog synths and “lots of guitar,” sounds “urgent and psychotic, in equal parts the most caustic sound and also, I think, the most sonically blooming. It’s high stakes and intentional.”
Any lingering similarities to “Daddy’s Home” are probably purely accidental. “The last record, I was approaching tough subjects with a lot of biting humor and wit,” she told Mojo. “I put on a wig, I was prancing around, it was so fun. This record is darker and harder and more close to the bone. I’d say it’s my least funny record yet! There’s nothing cute about it.”
Tour dates for 2024 have not been announced, beyond a few festival appearances, including Bottlerock in Napa Valley in late May. She also revealed on Twitter that she will be doing individual gigs related to the festival in San Francisco and Napa.
The full track list:
Hell is Near
Reckless
Broken Man
Flea
Big Time Nothing
Violent Times
The Power’s Out
Sweetest Fruit
So Many Planets
All Born Screaming (featuring Cate Le Bon)
