St Vincent is back with her sixth album Daddy's Home and it's safe to say it's unlike any other album release so far in 2021.
Daddy's Home is a brilliant example of modern production meeting retro influences and creating something almost completely brand new. Although it seems like the sounds of the 80s have been flooding the airwaves over the past couple of years, it's the late 60s and 70s that we see in play in St Vincent's most recent collection.
The album in general has the trippy and glam vibes of Pink Floyd or later Beatles releases, whilst simultaneously sound like something you've never heard before.
We find a lot of soul in St Vincent's vocals, particularly on the title track 'Daddy's Home' which shows the power her voice has. she's not belting, nor particularly reaching any high points, but there's so much oomph you can feel running through each line.
At its heart, Daddy's Home feels like a discussion on identity, flicking between an alter ego and reality so rapidly that you can't keep up. It doesn't seem to be a coincidence that the era she's attempting to recreate in this album, was also a big era for music artists recreating themselves. However, rather than recreation, it seems like st Vincent is getting more honest than ever. Vincent has never been one to shy away from difficult topics, and this album is no exception, and discusses everything from her own father (Daddy's Home) to drug dependence (...At The Holiday Party), to the concept of motherhood (My Baby Wants a Baby). It's almost as if the spectacle of the production is designed to distract the listener from these difficult discussions, but we're still here and listening intently.
St Vincent is an incredibly well-seasoned artist, and you see this in both her vocals and her melodies, but also in the way she's experimenting. No two albums sound the same, and Daddy's Home is no exception. It may not be a phenomenon like Masseducation (2014) or St Vincent (2016) were, but it's something new and riveting, which when you're on your sixth album, deserves a hell of a lot of credit.
RATING: 7.5