Album of the Month: March 2009
Album of the Month: March 2009
Neko Case
Middle Cyclone
There is something intoxicating about Neko Case's voice. It's a powerful voice, with every inflection dense with expression. She wields it bluntly when she sings in The New Pornographers, since power pop is not built for subtlety. With her previous album, the masterpiece "Fox Confessor Brings the Blood", her voice was tamed, expertly and effortlessly woven through her alt. country anthems. This is not to say there is anything subdued about her delivery - there is so much in her voice that even when she pulls back a bit, the sound is rich.
Thankfully, this effortless intensity returns in "Middle Cyclone". Of course, if the songs stood on melody alone, there would be a void in the experience, but as with "Fox Confessor", the bed of music laid for her is as dynamic and peppered with curious inflections as her vocals are. It's not inaccurate to call the accompaniment "country", though there are no stereotypes exploited here. Though it doesn't appear that The Sadies accompany her on this album as they did on "Fox Confessor", their spirit of allowing spacey arrangements into country music carries over to "Middle Cyclone". This freedom is never overused or exploited for novelty though, so it's easy to miss. Fever is a gorgeous duet with Sarah Harmer featuring absurdly flanged guitar, but it's so well integrated that you only really notice something strange is going on when the guitar stands alone for a dissonant deconstructive outro. The band holds back often when it's necessary to place the focus squarely on Neko Case.
Too often I hear bands with proficient musicians standing on their proficiency as if its a substitute for soul. There is no such issue here. It's hard to follow up a masterpiece, and Neko Case has managed to do so without stumbles, retaining everything that makes her music engaging.