3. St. Vincent, “MASSeduction”
“One of our great female eccentrics,” I wrote about Annie Clark on her last album—a handle she still maintains, even if it now feels like a reduction. She promised a game-changer of a fifth album, and she makes good on that claim, though not in the way I expected, which is of course exactly why she clinches it. More accessible and outgoing, yes, but also just as arch and in control, MASSeduction (only she could get away with that title) features a seven-song sequence (from “Pills” to “New York”) as breathless as anything I’ve heard, a Prince pastiche that nearly outdoes him (the title track), an euphoric rush of a sexual conquest where she nearly outdoes herself (“Sugarboy”) and a bold closer (“Smoking Section”) that suggests she’s far from done pushing her own artistic boundaries.
“MASSeduction”:
2. Nicole Atkins, “Goodnight Rhonda Lee”
Previously, Atkins struck me as an incredible, tremulous singer in search of a voice, capable of an occasional great song (“Maybe Tonight”, “Girl You Look Amazing”) but nothing more. Oh, how her fourth album proves me wrong—deliberately, unfashionably out-of-time, it successfully repositions her as a genre-inclusive torch songstress as likely to co-write retro-rock laments with Chris Isaak (“A Little Crazy”, the title track) as she is to evoke the likes of Dusty In Memphis (“Darkness Falls So Quiet”) and Make Way For Dionne Warwick (“If I Could”). What’s more, Goodnight Rhonda Lee smoothly sprints from high to high, its eleven songs all of a piece. Still, I would be remiss not to single out “I Love Living Here (Even When I Don’t)”, a smart, ultimately devastating expression of how miserable and simultaneously content one can feel.
“I Love Living Here (Even When I Don’t):
1. Saint Etienne, “Home Counties”
At 19 tracks in just under an hour, it’s their longest long player; also their most musically diverse since Finisterre (if not So Tough.) Citing Brexit as a jumping-off point, Bob, Pete and Sarah present a concept album about the London suburbs they grew up in and continue to have a love/hate relationship with. Even more deeply felt than the pop-timism of 2012’s Words and Music, this one instantly locates that sweet spot the band’s always depended on, finding great inspiration in the mundane. Proceeding from typically immaculate three-minute singles (“Magpie Eyes”, “Out of My Mind”) and AM radio gold (“Underneath the Apple Tree”, “Take It All In”) to moodier stuff like instrumental “Breakneck Hill” and the beguiling, ominous “Heather”, all its disparate parts eventually form a gestalt, culminating in “Sweet Arcadia”: another in a series of Saint Etienne epics going back to “Avenue”, it evokes this world in exquisite detail via time, memory and such talismans as its gorgeous, watery electric piano straight out of 10cc’s “I’m Not In Love”. Home Counties is easily my record of the year, and one of this venerable trio’s very best.
“Magpie Eyes”:
“Sweet Arcadia”:
Haunted Jukebox 