“I don’t want to be your cheerleader no more,” sings Annie Clark, the musician also known as St. Vincent, on “Cheerleader”, a track off her third album “Strange Mercy.” Though it is doubtful that the 29-year-old Texan multi-instrumentalist has ever fist-pumped the pom-poms herself, Clark’s background includes stints as a guitarist and vocalist for the Polyphonic Spree and as a touring member of Sufjan Stevens’ band. In 2007, she gave up backing the boys to pursue her solo career and released her debut, “Marry Me,” followed two years later by her sophomore album, “Actor.” In the span of four years, St. Vincent has amassed a loyal following of fans. Critical acclaim has been showered upon every album she has released so far.

Fortunately, “Strange Mercy” does not disappoint; it’s never too radical a departure from her previous outings to alienate the fans she already has, yet it is more accessible, poised to garner new fans. Gone are the lush, baroque arrangements of woodwinds on “Actor.” Instead, Clark’s at times intricate and visceral guitar work has moved center-stage. Despite being an altogether more controlled affair than both of her previous albums, St. Vincent’s sound is still as effortlessly weird as ever.

Her single, “Cruel” is one of the most ebullient pieces of Blondie-esque indie pop-rock since The Strokes’ “12:51”. The song showcases Clark’s ability to write a catchy yet complex riff. Incongruously, adding intermittent strings that would not sound out of place on a Disney soundtrack works to the song’s benefit, only making it more uplifting.

Equally as enjoyable is “Surgeon” which starts off as a slow-burner with woozy keyboards and dizzyingly-layered offbeat licks and ends in an Eighties Prince-like freak-out in which Clark gets to show off her guitar chops. On the title track Clark proves that she knows her way around a ballad too, accompanying her mellifluous vocals with bittersweet plucking, until mid-song a strange keyboard adds the idiosyncratic touch you soon come expect from St. Vincent.

Despite the fact that “Cruel”, “Surgeon,” and “Strange Mercy” may be the only truly great tracks on this album, there are still a handful or more songs that are, if not spectacular, fine companions. Such songs include “Cheerleader”, “Northern Lights”, in which Clark sounds like she’s fronting Velvet Underground, “Dilettante” and “Neutered Fruit”. Even lesser songs such as “Chloe In The Afternoon” and “Champagne Year” are still melodious if not completely satisfying.

The choice to forgo the baroque arrangements on most of the songs definitely works for “Strange Mercy.” At times, her previous albums felt clustered, as Clark was trying to fit in all her great ideas rather than spreading them out and focusing on three or four per song. Even better, Clark has also reined in her tendency to let the shredding get over-the-top toward the end of her songs. Only twice, on “Nothern Lights” and “Neutered Fruit,” does Clark go off the deep end; though she might be aiming for a soaring effect, it mostly leaves you with a case of heightened blood pressure.

As regards the lyrics, the meaning of these is anybody’s guess. On the predecessor, “Actor,” a concept album of sorts, Clark’s lyrics were written from the perspective of frustrated housewives and sundry “failed” women. This time around, it’s hard to tell what to make of the lyrics. When she sings on “Year of the Tiger” of a young man who is “living in fear in the year of the tiger” and who asks if he can “owe you one, America?” is it the tiger-moms and cubs of the new Asian superpowers he fears? Maybe so. Probably not. Instead of poring over the hidden meanings of Clark’s cryptic words, you could simply enjoy the sophisticated and ornate pop music that St. Vincent has once again served.