Artist – Album: Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the
Flood
Released: 7th
March 2006
Sounds Like: Our home and native land
Over
the last decade or so, Canadian music has been enjoying something of a
renaissance, a growing upsurge in the number of exciting, cool and
influential bands taking up the mantle of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young and
vastly at odds with the more recent purveyors of the Canuck sound such as Bryan
Adams, Celine Dion and Alanis Morrisette. Whereas at the turn of the millennium
it was Sum 41 and Avril Lavigne who lived it up C-country style, it was
thankfully a different group of groups - Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene and
Wolf Parade to name a few - who kept the ball rolling, eh.
Neko
Case herself isn’t actually from Canada – she hails from Virginia – but she
first rose to prominence in the Vancouver based supergroup The New
Pornographers, certainly one of the best bands anywhere in the last 20 years.
There she teamed up with an indie rock collective (also featuring the
previously blogged aboot Destroyer aka Dan Bejar) who harnessed her songwriting
skills and beguiling, distinctive vocals to create sparkling indie rock. Solo,
the tempo is down and the songs are less hook-laden but her talent for pop
craft and maximisation of her brilliant voice remain as good as ever.
Fox
Confessor Brings the Flood is widely considered to be Case’s finest individual hour.
It’s a consistently strong set speckled
with a few outstanding gems. ‘Star
Witness’ has a shimmering beauty, surprisingly being about witnessing a car
crash. ‘John Saw That Number’ sounds
ancient and olde worlde. Worth a listen
buddy. (I’m not your buddy, friend. He’s not your friend, guy. I’m not your
guy, buddy...)
Albumaday... rating:
8/10
1. Margaret
vs. Pauline – 2:52
2. Star
Witness – 5:16
3. Hold
On, Hold On – 2:46
4. A
Widow’s Toast – 1:36
5. That
Teenage Feeling – 2:42
6. Fox
Confessor Brings the Flood – 2:42
7. John
Saw That Number – 4:06
8. Dirty
Knife – 3:18
9. Lion’s
Jaws – 2:28
10. Maybe
Sparrow – 2:37
11. At
Last – 1:35
12. The
Needle Has Landed – 3:45
Listen to ‘Star
Witness’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi6keFpm-BY
Also released on the 7th March:
1975: David Bowie – Young Americans
|
Also released on the 7th March:
2006: Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Etiquette
|
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