"This LP is basically not very good."

This review of Chris Cornell's new album, Scream, is actually more useful than the average review by a professional music critic. (Via ChordStrike.)

In that spirit, I wrote a review of St. Vincent's yet-to-be-released album Actor (which I was anticipating last Music Friday). Here it is, in full, originally appearing as a status update on Facebook:

John Althouse Cohen thinks the new St. Vincent album is pretty good but not as good as Marry Me. Better-produced, though.

You might read reviews of the album in Pitchfork or Rolling Stone, where the critics are trying to (1) satisfy people's word-count expectations and (2) show off their (a) facility with metaphor, (b) aptitude for lyrical analysis, and (c) knowledge of musical influences (probably mentioning Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell), but my Facebook status update tells you everything you need to know.

If you're a fan of St. Vincent based on Marry Me, it's worth getting Actor, but expect a bit of "sophomore slump." If you don't have either of her albums, get Marry Me first, and only get Actor if you really like Marry Me. Any ink spilled, or bandwidth hogged, dissecting this album in any further detail will be superfluous.