Review Challenge 12/125: Look for her (She’ll be around)

Blacklisted by Neko Case
2002, Bloodshot Records, 14 tracks at 39 min.
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RATING: 47 out of 50

Seeing Neko Case perform “Deep Red Bells” live was quite the treat. Following the concert, I bought some pastries and iced tea at the local CVS, wanting to fill my stomach. No cheese Danish, though, could be as satisfying as seeing someone with such command over the human voice. Case’s singing is anything but typical. Indeed, she assumed something of an extraordinary persona when she was on stage, aside from banter with the audience and her admittance to cutting one song a few seconds short.

Painting Case as superhuman is ridiculous, but it’s difficult to describe her vocal talents without resorting to some hyperbole. There’s something universal and dreamlike to her voice and lyrics; but one look at the person spitting these words and it’s hard not to feel a sense of detachment from someone who can sing so damned well.

Likely the second-best communicator of Case’s skills, Blacklisted is an alleged country album. More than anything it is a vocal album—Case’s voice often soars above the arrangements, drawing attention to itself without even trying. The arrangements themselves carry a vaguely American aroma; they are not so much specific as they are evocative. To take Blacklisted as a vocal album would be a grave mistake, however. Case needs (at minimum) a plain-colored backdrop against which to let loose her siren’s wail; otherwise, hers is a voice without any place or time.

Case’s sense of setting and mood is of special import to her music. The title track is profoundly grave, “I Wish I Was the Moon” is a humongous dose of the bittersweet, and “Lady Pilot” is suave, sly, comfort. Case maintains the same essential range throughout Blacklisted, and no one song varies wildly from another. Rather, it is Case’s ability to morph each track ever-so-slightly into something more magnificent, more wholesome than the last that stuns the listener.

Blacklisted? Hardly.