Review & setlist: Both sweet and macabre, St. Vincent is an engaging enigma at MGM

Her advice to current Berklee students: “Don’t learn so much that you start hating music.”

St. Vincent at MGM Music Hall at Fenway, Thursday, Sept. 5

“Thank you Boston. You really know how to make a girl feel special,” Anne Erin Clark sweetly uttered to her audience.

Someone unfamiliar with her repertoire might not assume from her demure demeanor that the artist known as St. Vincent develops experimental pop and art rock with themes of hell and anguish. To be fair, many of her songs also revolve around love.

A three-time Grammy award winner, Clark released her self-produced seventh album “All Born Screaming” on April 26. She has always co-produced her work, but this record was entirely her own creation — she tackled vocals, guitars, bass, piano, organ, Moog, synthesizers, clavieta, xylophone, vibraphone, dulcimer, drum programming, triangle, and percussion.

Inspired by David Byrne and David Bowie, the 41-year-old has relished investigating the depths of music since she was young, building a PC-based recording system with the help of her stepdad and uncle when she was 15.

Clark stopped at MGM Music Hall at Fenway on her “All Born Screaming Tour” near her old stomping grounds at Berklee on Sept. 5.

In honor of her arrival, a man wearing a “Jesus is Lord” shirt and a sign spouting messages about being saved — a regular fixture on the David Ortiz Bridge — stood near the entrance in an attempt to deter people from venturing into the house of sin.

At 9:15 p.m., Clark appeared through the center of an archway, a flood of white light fanning out from her body into the audience. She presented herself as a heavenly image, though something darker was lying in wait.

“And I’ve been mourning you since the day I met you,” Clark cried out on “Reckless,” alternating between a passionate, raspy tone and a soft soprano.

Whenever a song seemed to mold into an understandable pattern, it would peel off into a completely different — and welcomed — direction. On “Big Time Nothing,” Clark placed her hands on her head and vocalized like a robot. The track points to every rule to follow in order to not break the mold, but of course, Clark never follows the rules. She looked like an awkward ballerina scuttling across the stage in a peculiar, yet dainty fashion.

Anyone drinking at the concert might have felt a little queasy during “Dilettante,” when screens behind Clark projected her at an angle, bringing the dizzying feeling of the track to a physical manifestation on stage. The song moves at a disorienting pace, which Clark met with strange prancing and manic eyes, embodying something akin to Johnny Depp’s Hatter.

Clark’s thoughtfulness in her production made me wonder what it would be like to crawl inside of her brain, though I imagine — while thoroughly impressed — I would be frightened by what I saw.

“On the street, I’m a king-sized killer/ I can make your kingdom come,” Clark cleverly sings on her fiery single “Broken Man.” She fell and thrashed around on the ground while describing desperately needing someone who tears you apart.

Clark’s music and persona is rooted in the macabre but in a whimsical manner. She sings about life being endless suffering while flitting around like a puppeteered porcelain marionette. Her staggering seems random, but it is all calculated chaos – an attribute of her unwavering perfectionism. She recently told The Forty-Five that her latest record needed to be “emotionally raw but sonically perfect,” which she continued to emulate in her performance.

Clark experienced immense loss and grief, which she channeled into “All Born Screaming.” From the painful realization that each day isn’t promised, she learned to not take any moment for granted.

“Not to be corny but life is really crazy short, and it’s miraculous, and so if we’re here, and we’re doing the damn thing, let’s [expletive] do the damn thing,” she told the audience.

Clark sang her jazzy, stripped down “Candy Darling” with striking vocal runs “for all the Berklee kids” at the show.

She didn’t officially graduate from Berklee but recalled getting to walk at commencement anyway. Unfortunately, the keynote speaker sending her off to her bright future was Bill Cosby — known as an accomplished comedian then and a convicted felon now.

Her advice to current Berklee students: “Don’t learn so much that you start hating music.” She added that no matter how skilled of an artist you think you are, music will humble you.

Before rushing backstage, Clark sang her title track “All Born Screaming” — an echoing chorus emerging from the gates of hell. The blaring bass vibrated throughout the venue as Clark and her bandmates harmonized in a beautifully menacing display.

Clark returned for an encore of “Somebody Like Me,” a starry-eyed love song with just vocals and keys. “Does it make you an angel or some kind of freak/ To believe enough in somebody like me, baby?” she softly cooed. It’s dreamy and jazzy, and I can only hope that someday Clark will re-release the track featuring fellow former Berklee student and queen of jazz-pop Laufey.

Setlist for St. Vincent at MGM Music Hall at Fenway, Sept. 5, 2024

• Reckless
• Fear the Future
• Los Ageless
• Big Time Nothing
• Marrow
• Dilettante
• Pay Your Way in Pain
• Digital Witness
• Sweetest Fruit
• Flea
• Cheerleader
• Broken Man
• Year of the Tiger
• Surgeon
• Hell Is Near
• Candy Darling
• New York
• Sugarboy
• All Born Screaming

ENCORE:

Somebody Like Me