Album Review

Considering it features the artist posing on the cover on top of a car poised to strike with a sword, you might expect Middle Cyclone, the new album from alt-country/power-pop chanteuse Neko Case, to be full of snarl and attitude. Occasionally, her lyrics are weapons every bit as potent as that image. But rarely does the musical backdrop of her songs rise to such provocative levels.

Settling too often for a genteel, mid-tempo gallop, many of the songs on Middle Cyclone are pleasant enough but leave only the faintest impact at their conclusion. The opening song is called “This Tornado Loves You,” for Pete’s sake, and yet the arrangement barely kicks up a stiff breeze. Similar problems beset first single “People Got a Lotta Nerve,” which hides a tough Case line like “I’m a man-eater/But still you’re surprised when I eat you” in airy harmonies and a rote shuffling rhythm.

Listen to “This Tornado Loves You”
Listen to “People Got A Lotta Nerve”

Real problems set in when Case’s lyrics veer away into abstractions. Perhaps her experience with New Pornographers and their brand of head-scratching lyrics rubbed off on her. But the pop maestros in the band know how to bring enough thunder and hooks to make you sing along to even the most bizarre lines. On Middle Cyclone, her deadpan readings and the polite music leave those lyrics dangling out there like riddles that would take way too much energy to decipher. The cryptic musings on forgettable tracks like “Polar Nettles” and “The Pharaohs” have nothing on the concrete, lived-in truth of “The Next Time You Say Forever,” when Case warns her mate that “The next time you say forever/I will punch you in your face.”

Listen to “Polar Nettles”
Listen to “The Next Time You Say Forever”

The latter song is more of a slow jam, and Case fares better with that material. The title track features a music box-like instrumental hook as the singer wallows in her own self-destructive ways (“Someone make a fool of me/Before I can show ‘em how its done”). And she’s all over the Harry Nilsson chestnut “Don’t Forget Me,” wringing every ounce of world-weary black humor out of the song. (Her choice on the other cover song, the bizarre Sparks plea “Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth”, was a little less inspired.)

Listen to “Middle Cyclone”
Listen to “Don’t Forget Me”

Finally, toward album’s end, Case gets a little momentum going with back-to-back standout songs. “I’m An Animal” might startle listeners who’ve been lulled into a stupor by all of the laid-back offerings to that point, but the thumping beat is just the right tonic to bring out the fire in her vocals. And “Prison Girls” is an ambitious marvel. It’s got a spy-movie ambience, and when Case takes off on some wordless “Oh-Oh-Oh” runs, it’s by far and away the sultriest moment on the entire CD.

Listen to “I’m An Animal”
Listen to “Prison Girls”

I guess you should never judge a CD by its cover, and Case might have just been throwing us a curve with that image. Still, I can’t help but wish she had turned this Middle Cyclone up into a full-force gale far earlier and much more often.

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