"Sit down, son. We need to have a talk, a serious talk about the evils of Country Western music. Don't give me that innocent look; I found this Neko Case CD in your room, and I know, you're probably thinking, 'But, dad! Neko doesn't even play country!' True enough, but this is how it always starts. There's trouble in Ms Case's witchy, alt-country siren-song, mark my words. Boy, I've seen the best minds of my generation lost to Garth Brooks and midget rodeos, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let it happen to you. Sure, today it's a little bit of Neko Case, but pretty soon you'll be listening to 'Folsom Prison Blues' on the weekends, then before you know it you'll be twanging up every day after school and buying CDs by anyone named Travis or Loretta. And by then, it'll be too late. I'm confiscating this copy of The Virginian for your own good. You're barely passable as sons go already, so be a good kid. Stick to Shellac."
A few years later, I'm listening to Neko's third full-length, Blacklisted, and I finally understand what my dad was worried about. I'm not about to run out and buy Alan Jackson's back catalog or anything-- a healthy dislike of Kentucky Fried Music has been bred into me. But even to my yankee sensibilities, the subtle influence of the old South on this album is charming, even beautiful. Beneath its jangle and melancholy, a faint country soul gently simmers, occasionally bubbling to the surface. Maybe it's just the barest hint of a Southern drawl in the Virginia-born Case's dusky, breathless vocals (the accent is still detectable though she was raised primarily in Tacoma, WA), or the twangy banjo and steel pedal melodies, but it's in there, and goddamnit, I just can't resist.
Tensely picked banjo and twelve-string guitar open "Things That Scare Me" with that timeless trademark of the most haunting western balladry: the sinister vibe of imminent danger, a distant peal of thunder before the sky falls. But the foreboding here is merely a ruse-- nothing comes but the slow, sad rain of "Deep Red Bells", whose backing "ooh's" and echoes of steel lend an air of deep longing. This song's clouds part briefly in a moment of silence when Neko plaintively intones, "Where does this mean world cast its cold eye?/ Who's left to suffer long about you?" Later, the refrain is followed by a sparkling bridge like a glimpse of sun before the rain returns.
With instrumental assistance from notables like Giant Sand's Howe Gelb and his Calexico counterparts Joey Burns and John Convertino-- as well as Chicago alt-country crooner Kelly Hogan and Canadian singer/songwriter Mary Margaret O'Hara on backing vocals-- Blacklisted's accompaniment is roundly excellent and evocative, but Case's voice is what really sells the record. Her opaque wail is more confident here than ever, topping even her sturdy melodic blasts on the New Pornographers' now-legendary "Letter from an Occupant." But where she simply belted that tune out to gloriously compliment the band's snapping power-pop, her performance on Blacklisted is dense with emotional heft and more richly expressive. Her rendition of Aretha Franklin's "Runnin' Out of Fools"-- reworked ever so slightly to match the tone of this record, yet remaining largely faithful to the original-- is the best evidence of this, conveying ecstasy and loss with an elastic buoyancy so full of eloquent depth that you feel as though it could swallow you whole and spit you out on another plane entirely.
I've stayed off the C&W; ever since my pop had that little talk at me, but when its influence is employed as beautifully and flawlessly as it is on Blacklisted, it makes me wonder what other experiences could be lying in wait for me. Blacklisted is gorgeous heartache, my soul be damned-- and "Folsom Prison Blues" ain't too shabby, either. Dad, if you're reading this, I know that you listened to my copy of The Virginian even after you warned me about its gateway effects; I saw you. So if you see me a few years down the line in a rusted-out pickup with a bumper sticker that screams "Never Forget!" in neon reds and blues, and you want to know who taught me how to really fall for this C&W; stuff... it was you, alright? I learned it by watching you.
