St. Vincent @ Ogden Twilight 8.14

All Born Screaming, St. Vincent’s self-produced seventh album, brings a black and white aesthetic, powerful beats and critical acclaim that have trumpeted a return to form. 

Preceded by openers Daytime Lover and Eartheater, St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) opened her Wednesday evening set promoting her new album at Ogden Twilight with “Reckless.” Shrouded in smoke and mystique, she prowled and owned the stage, then shredded on her classic Ernie Ball Music Man guitars. Ever the experimentalist in imagery and sound—at one point during “Dilettante,” Clark played a voice-modulating Soma Pipe—Clark demonstrated her mastery in artistic evolution for 18 songs. On their prior stop in Boise, as they explored town, she mentioned that she and her bandmates may have been “mistaken for either satanists or nihilists.”

Just before “The Sweetest Fruit,” a track with homages to the late SOPHIE and other queer artists, Clark announced, “This song is for everybody who…  when they were growing up, didn’t feel like they were normal or didn’t belong… despite a hostile world, you persist.” 

The set traversed Clark’s classics, with highlights including “Cheerleader” and “Sugarboy,” works that offered the opportunity for drum solos and dueling guitars. As the show began to close, Clark led the audience in song to “New York,” the lovely ballad from Masseduction produced by Jack Antonoff (Clark shares songwriting credits with him on the resurgent Taylor Swift single “Cruel Summer”). She took a reprieve and for a few intimate minutes, stood on the barricade and leaned into the crowd, at one point holding hands with a young fan who sat on her parent’s shoulders.

Photos by Moses Namkung |  @mosesnphoto