Neko doesn’t like “alt-country”…

“It just sounds like a website,” she says. She’d rather her sound be dubbed “country noir” or “Americana,” …if anything at all.

“Country-noir” sounds pretty, and “Americana” is kind of endearing, but if there’s one thing Seattlest has learned about Neko Case, it’s that her sound transcends genre and chews up attempted categorizations like no other recording artist out there.

Last week, Seattlest provided a preliminary report on Case’s fourth studio album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. Now that we’ve had ample time to remove our shoes, don our headphones, and close our eyes (because that’s the best way to listen to Neko), we offer our full report…

Be they worn by lion or by wolf, reoccurring themes of predatory teeth run wild through Fox Confessor. These visions usually (but not always) have less to do with these stalking beasts, unseen by our night-eyes, and more to do with the human natures of longing and fear. Longing for those we’ve lost, or those we’ve yet to meet. Fear of the implications inherent in either sense.

In the song “Lion’s Jaws” for instance, Case sings of love lost, and its effect on her environment:

You're gone, the trees are so quiet; When your hand was in my pocket; How they swayed from side to side; Now the meddling sky and my snowy eye; Sees a different night

The subsequent line, “The night I fell into the lion’s jaws, to my regret and your delight,” indicates an unspoken event which proves catastrophic to the subject relationship. Fox Confessor is laced with this kind of imagery and story-telling throughout. The fact that it is Neko Case telling the tale, with her potent and ethereal voice, grants the story a level of credibility, rare in many of today’s songwriters.

Fox Confessor peaks with the haunting track, “Dirty Knife.” The story of a lone woodsman gone mad during his self-inflicted isolation. The song starts slow, setting the scene. A lazy strum of the chords, Case’s voice… easy, thoughtful strokes of the brush. And then the descent…

Cascading letters pool on the stairs; The grass is high, the cats are wild; You can't even touch the tip of their tails; And the blood runs crazy with giant strides; He sang nursery rhymes to paralyze; The wolves that eddy out the corner of his eyes; But they squared him frozen where he stood; In the glow of the furniture piled high for firewood; And the blood runs crazy with giant strides; And the woodsman failed to breech those fangs in time; So they dragged him through the underbrush; Wearing three winter coats and a dirty knife

…Voice and melody during these frightful scenes are both horrifying and beautiful. The furious picking of the guitar, the thundering bass and cello, and then the mysterious closing falsetto (which Case sings in Ukrainian), raise the little hairs on the back of our neck and arms like nothing we’ve heard in some time.

Other key tracks:

>>Widow’s Toast
>>Star Witness
>>Hold On, Hold On
>>Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
>>John Saw That Number

Seattlest Declaration: Fox Confessor sounds like nothing else out there right now... Quite possibly the year's best album.

[Neko Case will play Saturday May 27th at Sasquatch]