MUSIC REVIEW: Neko Case

Fox Confessor Brings the Flood Anti/Epitaph
Music •••• Sound ••••
The latest from solo artist (and New Pornographer) Neko Case features a host of death-themed songs that meld American Gothic with Eastern European fable imagery. It touches on such fun topics as innocent-prey animals ("Maybe Sparrow"), car-crash victims ("Star Witness"), and crazed, murderous families ("Dirty Knife"). Meanwhile, Case's clear-as-ice, cold-as-steel vocals are framed by the gauzy sounds of jangly guitars, cellos, bowed basses, and Garth Hudson's hall-of-mirrors keyboards. The results are, one surmises, as intended: quietly disquieting.

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