Music Review: Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
Her catalog has been about shooting the gap. Finding a perfect middle ground between a gloomy Tacoma past and a gleaming Nashville present. With Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, Neko Case found the right mixture; a merging of independent rock edge with dusty country ramblings.
After the excellent building-blocks Furnace Room Lullaby and Blacklisted, 2006's Fox Confessor was haunting, desolate, and it won my nod for Album of the Year. Though, with any artist, and with Case in particular - whose work solo and with The New Pornographers is superb - following greatness time after time becomes increasingly difficult.
And indeed Middle Cyclone, on first and second listens, seems like a group of average songs tethered together by fleeting moments of brilliance. Tracks like "Vengeance is Sleeping", "Magpie to the Morning", and "The Pharaohs" all suffer from a lumbering repetition musically that bogs down otherwise amazing vocal performances. "The Next Time You Say Forever" and "I'm An Animal" seem short and underdeveloped, but with glowingly awesome potential.
Fortunately, further dedication to Cyclone brings the realization that these brief little 15 to 30 second flashes are the true payoff. Like real twisters, they're here and gone in an instant, but the effects are permanent and dramatic. "This Tornado Loves You" describes the wreckage:
"My love, I am the speed of sound/ I left the motherless, fatherless/ their souls dangling inside-out from their mouths/ but it's never enough, I want you..."
Other golden grains are sifted out of the chaff. "Polar Nettles" ties descending piano lines and a rattling snare march to Case displaying the shocking new "Sistine Chapel painted with a Gatling gun." The title track has her humming a soft nocturne above a preciously off-kilter music box. Closing cut "Red Tide" brings smoky saxophones as Neko recalls the "smell here of gravel and cigarettes lit/ when the match made them sweet/ when the engine turned over and beat up our street." The bridge of first single "People Got a Lot of Nerve" pushes her voice to precise new heights with a lack of restraint that's refreshingly vulnerable.
On the album's promotional video, Case admitted that some of Middle Cyclone's audio takes had her balancing on the edge, knowing she was either on to something amazing or the whole thing could fall apart with a gust of wind in her Vermont-based barn/studio. Really, aside from the high expectations and any perceivable letdowns here, it's that she's walking (and reveling in) that fine line between failure and glory that makes this record great.
