St Vincent’s seventh album, All Born Screaming , released in April, marked a shift in the output of the American songwriter born Annie Clark. For her previous records she donned latex to become a “dominatrix in a mental asylum” ( Masseducation , 2017) and sported a peroxide wig as a “benzo beauty queen” ( Daddy’s Home , 2021). But with All Born Screaming she put aside her penchant for play-acting.
After so long playing with irony, here she sung from the heart, often about being caught between reality and the end of the world, as on the sombre yet swinging “So Many Planets”. On stage at London’s majestic Royal Albert Hall on Saturday night, we saw an artist more than two decades into her career, and seemingly never more comfortable in her own skin. “Show of hands, who has a Prince Albert?” she asked, a few songs in (a provocative reference to the intimate piercing named for the hall’s founder ).
A surprising number of hands ascended into the air. The set was a tight 75 minutes, featuring 19 songs in slick succession. Clark’s voice was versatile, skipping from the richness required for opener “Reckless” to the breathy furiousness of “Fear the Future”.
Read Next Liam Gallagher's Sheffield show was the closest fans will get to Oasis The artist, wearing a belted black blazer and mini skirt, switched between wielding an electric guitar like a weapon and holding only a mic. Behind her, the four-piece band moved between the heavy rock of older songs .