Neko Case

Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (Anti)

By Chris Pacifico
Published: March 17th, 2006 | 12:29pm

After taking part in last year’s masterpiece, Twin Cinema, with fellow Canadian power-pop mavens the New Pornographers, Neko Case is back with her first solo album in four years. Enlisting aid from the likes of the Sadies, Calexico, and multi-instrumentalist Garth Hudson of the Band, Case shows that she is indeed a sonic chameleon with Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. On this remarkable effort, her own brand of Americana twang is given a bit more of a darker edge with a fable-storytelling hybrid of songwriting, but above all, it is Case’s voice that reigns supreme – her throaty, smoky, and honey-coated coo at the helm of this enticing effort.

“Margaret Vs. Pauline,” the album’s opening salvo, delves into the lonely, late-night aura that Pasty Cline was known to evoke. Case’s vocal range varies to capture the certain mood of her songs, like the gusty resonance of “Star Witness,” where her voice drizzles in the same manner of a dazzling liquid flow, or the dark roadhouse soul of “Hold On, Hold On,” with its icy overtones that make it eerily enchanting.

Case even has a sense for delivery, whether that be in the Brill Building, girl-group sway of “That Teenage Feeling” or the traditional down home tone of “John Saw That Number” (recorded in the back stairwell of Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern to give it more echoed acoustics).

In this day and age of iPods, iTunes, mp3’s, and file-sharing services, it seems as if the art of the album is withering away. It’s comforting to see a release like Fox Confessor Brings the Flood come along. While its songs seem to be monographs in and of themselves, Case has done a stellar job in making an album that tells an underlying story from beginning to end. With an eclectic stew of musical influences ranging from country, soul, R&B, and more, Case shows that she is indeed a modern day renaissance woman.