Shut Up So I Can Think

St. Vincent “Krokodil”

Annie Clark is a ridiculously versatile musician, but increasingly, everyone just wants her to rock out. It’s not so much that her other music is lacking, but rather that when she goes full on rock, she delivers intense, unrestrained performances. For most of her career to date, those rocking moments have been bits of cathartic release in otherwise mannered and finely crafted songs – her material on Actor, in particular, dramatizes the tortured inner world of someone trying to seem calm and composed.

Her new single, released as part of Record Store Day, is the first time Clark has gone off the deep end into full-on heavy rock – “Krokodil,” the a-side, is two and a half minutes of crazed industrial punk with Clark screaming about a Russian synthetic opiate that eats away your flesh, and the b-side, “Grot,” is sinister doom metal laced with a loop of angelic vocals. Both songs are amazing, and leave me desperate for more. This is a great use of the 7″ format – it’s either a quick detour, or a harbinger of things to come. I’m really hoping it’s the latter, and it’s a “Strawberry Fields Forever” b/w “Penny Lane” warming us up for a Sgt. Peppers-worth of heavy pop down the line.