I Need You To Drive The Nail

Broken Man by St. Vincent on their 2024 album "All Born Screaming" is moody, blistering industrial rock with a hidden superpower–a volcanic guitar tone. I'm asking if you want to play this song on some killer speakers like I would ask, "Hey, you wanna see a dead body?" It's a thing you can't come back from. I'm asking if you want to hear something that can't be unheard. Well, do you?

Have you ever been listening to a song, vibing a little, and then it shows you another gear is in its back pocket? I love that. On Broken Man, this happens at 1:04. It sounds like Zeus found a Marshall Stack. I'm cheating, because I know it's an actual cranked up Marshall Stack that St. Vincent placed in a huge room with a couple Coles stereo ribbon mics. In an interview, Annie Clark said as much when she was asked about this ungodly noise.

St. Vincent front-man Annie Clark is totally in on the bit. This level of sound production isn't an accident. Annie is a craftsman. She plays a lot of instruments. She's a guitar pedal nerd. She's got a signature guitar line. She programs drum machines and has a favorite guitar pick. I like Annie Clark.

St. Vincent is one of those bands going through perpetual reinvention. Since 2007, they've been shades of folk, pop, punk, EDM, etc., all to varying degrees of success. St. Vincent doesn't seem as interested in a genre as they are interested in music. I dig it.

In St. Vincent's latest iteration, the "All Born Screaming" album released in April 2024, it's like Nine Inch Nails and Tori Amos had a little industrial confessional rock baby. And Dave Grohl is the godfather. He plays drums on "Broken Man" and a few other tracks on the album. I am here for it. Three perfect songs anchor the middle of this album: Broken Man, Flea, and Big Time Nothing. I'll put Flea on the bonus tracks playlist.

Broken Man starts with a minimal industrial beat contrasting Clark's sultry and sardonic vocal styling. It's a slow burn with digital drums feinting and darting around the mix, building to the explosive guitar debut. Even after that, it doesn't go whole-enchilada until the last minute and a half.

Live drums slowly encroach until Cian Riordan, Dave Grohl, and Mark Guiliana provide percussion. Annie's towering guitar comes back with a vengeance. Combined with building choral effects on the backing vocals, a saxophone taking stabs at the mid-range, and an industrial flair that never left; it's a roiling, rippling, densely-layered rock-out I can listen to again and again. Annie asks, "Who the hell do you think I am? And what are you looking at?" I don't know, Annie, but I can't look away.

Data

Song: Broken Man
Album: All Born Screaming
Artist: St. Vincent
Genre: Industrial, Rock, Blues, Metal
Year: 2024
Length: 3:22
Composer: Annie Clark
Producer: St. Vincent