Dallas native Annie Clark dropped out of school and joined up with The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens, living a baroque rock dream. In 2006, she shed the sweetness and became St. Vincent. Last year's Strange Mercy challenges her alabaster image with panic-ridden tracks that scream through her corroding guitar work. "Chloe in the Afternoon" opens the album as Clark sings, with a definite sense of fragility, about a "horse-hair whip" in an S&M love story. Later, the languid "Surgeon" builds into a frenetic synth freakout. In Clark's case, weirdness is the charming bait. Austin's brooding folk-rockers Shearwater open. —Ashleigh Phillips