If my stubborn mouth doesn’t let me down

City Swan – Neko Case

If I didn’t have the little booklet to tell me otherwise, I would swear that this new Neko Case record was just a bunch of Teenage Fanclub covers.

Which is not a bad thing!  Teenage Fanclub is great, and this mode of power-pop with the Neko Case voice and sensibility is great, too.  It is lacking a bit in the austere wonderment that you got with some of her best work, and the production gets a bit too heavy in a few places.  But on the whole it’s a good sound.  See, in particular, “Man” and “City Swan” which are bright and fantastic.

And pretty much across the board, the weakest songs are the ones that back away from the big production.  “Afraid” is fine but hardly gripping, for example.  And then there’s “Nearly Midnight, Honolulu,” which is…a divisive song.  In the sense that some people think it’s execrable, and other people are wrong.  The one strong exception here is “Calling Cards” which is delightfully simple and beautiful.

There are a few other strangely flat elements to the record, which often stems from weirdly atonal vocal arrangements.  “Night Still Comes” is a very nice song with a chorus that goes nowhere.  Same thing with “Local Girl.”