SIXTH ALBUM BY ST. VINCENT MAKES GREAT IMPACT

A product of its influences in a particularly wondrous way, reverent homage combined with a powerful aesthetic elevate “Daddy’s Home” to not only an enjoyable work, as is, but also a fascinating study on how contemporary artistic adaptations allow older genres and styles to continue to flourish in a new way under a new hand.

Respect is a key aspect of the sixth album by St. Vincent (born Annie Clark, an American musician), evidently an ever-important value in terms of what concepts she desires to bring attention to. Early 1970s funk, soul, folk, and classic psychedelic rock are shown to have been mastered here, and it is with a passionate adoration that she embraces them to diversify her vision.

Indeed, musically and lyrically, “Daddy’s Home” expresses a great competency as a loving dedication to ideas, places, artforms, and even people worth re-remembering forever.

Lyrically, the latter category is particularly present – the titular track celebrating the return of her father (whose favorite genres make up the compositional direction of the album) into her everyday life after his release from prison, and a later piece serving as a eulogy for iconic trans artist Candy Darling.

With considerable input from legendary producer Jack Antonoff, one must also mention how, though “Daddy’s Home” shows deep admiration for the musical decision-making of the past, St. Vincent welcomes modern structural intricacies. She features just the right amount of technologically enabling instrumental touch previously impossible for these more aged sonic forms, never straying too far from her more important intent to keep the attention on the styles being paid tribute.

In fact, if there is anything one may have wanted more of from “Daddy’s Home,” it would have been a bit more exploration from St. Vincent herself. Though one could easily argue this wasn’t her purpose for the album’s creation in the first place, it is fascinating to ponder an alternate reality where she used her incredible harnessing to propel the work further into uniquely her territory – though this very well could have come at the cost of its critical central statement.

Point taken, then.

Representing not only the immense influence these genres have granted music culture, but the great hunger and adoration for them still, St. Vincent rather impressively manages to provide here a masterful framing of entire movements for what they were: Impossible-to-replace worlds, worth remembering.