Monday, January 01, 2007

2006 In Music: Fox Confessor Brings The Flood

Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

This was the first album this year that completely blew me away. Rabbit Fur Coat was special, but Fox Confessor is on a level that can only be described as transcendentally awesome.

“The Voice” meets lush instrumentation meets thick, cryptic lyrics. This album wraps you in a warm blanket of sound, hands you a cup of cocoa, and shows you sad films.

After I fell in love with “Fox Confessor” I’ve been basically trying to buy everything else that Neko Case has done (I still need Canadian Amp, and I guess I’ll have to buy the Austin City Limits session when it comes out on CD). Her progression from basically singing straight country songs on The Virginian to becoming darker and more cryptic on Furnace Room Lullaby and Blacklisted, to the hauntingly beautiful wonder that is Fox Confessor Brings The Flood is astonishing.

Some may chide this album for being too short; that she took 4 years to follow up a 40 minute album with a 35 minute album, but I disagree. These songs may be short, but they’re not missing anything. It seems like she simply decided that there was no point to stringing out songs that were already complete for the purpose of adding a few more minutes to the album.

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