Throughout its thirty-nine minutes, Actor demonstrates a continued development of depth and breadth for Annie Clark, as these songs are meaty in comparison to previous work. Also, the apparent disconnect between the sweetness of her purposely-exposed face (plastering it on the cover of an album is a good way for people to know what you look like, jsyk) and the often dark and foreboding subject matter is more present than ever—rarely does a song go by without something at least mildly disturbing to pull from the lyrics. Add on top of that a full-band willingness to rock out, with even occasional hints of Kraut to boot, and songs like the brutal “Marrow” and the propulsive “Actor Out of Work” are for the first time possible. But the big thing here is that asking a half dozen people which song on the album is their favorite may very well result in a half dozen different answers. more ›