St. Vincent's (Annie Clark) latest album, "Actor", is a tour de force. Her previous release didn't strike a chord with me and I was someone who wanted so badly to get into this fair-skinned beauty because all the cool kids were doing it. Alas, it just didn't happen. The folks at NPR's All Songs Considered kept talking her up on their SXSW recap and made it sound like I should give it another go. Hot damn I am so glad I did. "Actor" is already starting out as one of my favorite albums of 2009 (you can put the Yeah Yeah Yeah's "It's Blitz" on that list as well).

From the very start, Clark's sweet voice is propelled forward with an equally sweet bass drum beat. She sings, "Desperate doesn't look good on you, neither does your virtue. Paint the black hole blacker," and yet somehow its disposition is sunny. At the 2:44 mark it gets raw, gritty and nasty. She told Entertainment Weekly, "I'm happy with how the orchestrated and beautiful parts on the album came out, I'm also happy about how disgusting and gnarly the guitar parts came out." She has crafted a beautifully contradictory album - which you can stream in its entirety on NPR's website.