Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
NEKO CASE
Anti-
As a rule, artists do a miserable job of applying descriptive catch-phrases to their music, but cult singer (and New Pornographer) Neko Case proves the exception: She has referred to her sound as "country noir," which is about as apt as it gets. Case evokes the haunting quality of Patsy Cline, k.d. lang and the Cowboy Junkies' Margo Timmins, but also has a persistent sigh in her voice that calls to mind the best blues singers.
Country noir is just one element heard in her fine new solo album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. "That Teenage Feeling" is a left-field slice of girl-group pop with a chorus worthy of '60s Lesley Gore. Case also takes the traditional white gospel song "John Saw that Number," drenches it with echo and somehow renders it new.
Elsewhere, Case (who wrote the entire disc) rolls out mesmeric ballads and brooding mid-tempo numbers, most with odd chord juxtapositions and elliptical but beguiling melodies. Her lyrics are poetic and potent, like this nugget from "Dirty Knife": "So suddenly the madness came/ with it's whiskered, wolven, either pangs/ he locked the door/ and he shut the blinds/ he laid down on the floor and slept like iron/ while the dirty knife worked deep/ into his spine." Case, who co-produced, encased these tunes in shimmering guitars (including her own four-string tenor), spectral keyboards, acoustic bass, sensitive percussion and other subtle stuff — call it roots noir. 4 starsEric Snider
3121
PRINCE
Universal
3121 reinforces two long-held notions about Prince: a) he creates some albums on autopilot; b) his autopilot is often better than most artists' inspiration. The 12-song disc skews dead on the heavy funk, lacking the easy eclecticism of his best work. Some of the funk is, of course, exemplary. The opening title track grinds along at medium tempo, while Prince harmonizes with his own sped-up vocal and drops in a screaming guitar solo for extra heft; "Black Sweat" is a lean, nasty, Prince-alone-in-the-studio, rockin'-the-falsetto romp. These tunes are countervailed by more pedestrian fare like "Lolilta" and "Get on the Boat." The ballads are by and large a bust — typical, cliché-ridden lothario come-ons with some of the lamest lyrics to ever come off of Prince's pen — like this from "Te Amo Corazon": "At first I couldn't find the words to say/ How much you've changed my life in every way/ Now I just want to thank you/ Each and every day." 3121 dips exactly once into Prince's more rockin' side: "Fury," with its "1999"-esque synth patch, is certainly catchy, but by the numbers — like most of the rest of the disc. 3.5 stars ES
Drum's Not Dead
LIARS
Mute
Five years removed from the punk-funkular debut They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, Liars is an entirely different band. The drums still bludgeon you, but now they sound like you should be dancing around a Neolithic campfire rather than shaking your hips out at the local indie dive. The album suffers from a lack of clarity, though, with songs bleeding into one another and never really distinguishing themselves, which may be the effect the group is going for, considering the record is a concept album. It nevertheless leads to a disconnected, wandering feel. There are exceptions: "A Visit From Drum" uses pounding, complex rhythms and muffled vocals to great effect. 2.5 stars Cooper Lane Baker
Boo Hoo Hoo Boo
THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY?
Kill Rock Stars
With regard to indie rock, it seems like, for a while now, the words "experimental" and "arty" have been synonymous with "brutal noisecore" or "from Chicago, and featuring one of the Kinsellas." Thankfully, a seven-piece Canadian outfit named after a late-'60s American movie about a torturous dance contest is here to put a different kind of weird on you. As engaging as it is odd, the pervasively jaunty and rhythmic Boo Hoo Hoo Boo incorporates everything from Eastern European cabaret sounds to unusual percussion to create an intriguing vibe balanced somewhere between a demented Broadway musical and a carnival in Purgatory. The urgent yet upbeat tone and innovative performances are interesting enough, but it's the inventively interacting horn lines that really give this crazy disc its personality and flavor. 3.5 stars Scott Harrell
Magpie
STEPHEN FRETWELL
Fiction/Interscope
The first thing that strikes you about this debut album is Fretwell's remarkable voice. The British singer/songwriter has an amazing ability to sound bare and lonely one second and soaring and amorous the next. It's this instrument, really, that carries the guy through the record, a melancholy collection of tunes accompanied by little but acoustic guitar, piano and harmonica. This sort of modern folk music is normally atrocious, but Fretwell dodges Jack Johnson-like pitfalls with his icy demeanor and restraint. This album is perfect for those painful post-party mornings. 3.5 stars CLB
This article appears in Apr 5-11, 2006.