Hear This: Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
Neko Case (Mint Records)
REVIEW BY Matthew Elliot
On her first studio album in four years, honorary Canadian Neko Case saddles-up with some of this country’s most celebrated musicians, and the results are unexpectedly disappointing. Fox Confessor Brings The Flood is the relative low point on an impressive trajectory that began with 2000’s breakthrough Furnace Room Lullaby and peaked with 2002’s stunning Blacklisted. The Sadies are back for the ride, and mad scientist Garth Hudson (of The Band fame) provides a level of musicianship previously unheard on Case’s recordings. Hudson’s crackpot keyboard work is a joy and adds a new fullness to her sound. “Hold On, Hold On” is a revelation, but overall, long-time followers are led down an oft-trodden path where minor key ballads with gothic themes stand alongside mid-tempo honky-tonk shuffles. On songs like “Lion’s Jaws,” Case continues her promising experiments with soul music, but the vocals throughout Fox Confessor are over-the-top and overproduced. Her voice has always been unnecessarily drenched in reverb, but it’s all becoming a bit much. Upbeat gospel hymn “John Saw That Number” is grating and the vocal gymnastics on “That Teenage Feeling” are off-putting. While restraint has never really been Case’s forte, her three previous studio albums were both novel and imaginative; things are now unfortunately starting to become tiresome and predictable.
