Review Summary: Neon Grey Midnight Green is the defiant battle cry of the hopeless romantic, spitting in the face of an uncertain future. Refusing to go quietly into that lonely, cruel night.
And now we come to the second half of the 2020s. With folk's second revival already fading and the indie greats aging with varying states of grace; we find ourselves in a scene full of seasoned, idiosyncratic artists, coping with crises of personal age and societal collapse. Where does this place a tender-hearted spitfire like Neko Case, then?
Neon Grey Midnight Green attests that she's never been better.
This album is an optimistic shock to the system - a defibrillator of authenticity and heart. It serves as Neko Case's proclamation on love as lived experience. Rendered as a shimmering, creaking baroque monument erected in tribute to yearning, breathless moments, and salt-kissed affection. The work swings between swaying country crooning, sharply sweet doo wop duets, and cut your teeth world weary roots rock. Coming together as a patchwork canvas of pleasure and pain, Neon Grey Midnight Green captures the musings of a labyrinthine journey aimed at romance but destined for self-actualization.
The distinction between those two end points - romance and self-actualization - are at the core of this experience. Parsing one from the other is the thesis of the work. There is a certain pain to be had from the realization that aiming at love can only put yourself further from its embrace. But there is beauty, too, in shining that love inward - washing away the doubts that burden and trip you on your voyage.
Some of the best romantic albums are about being lost at sea...those by Low Roar, Gordon Lightfoot, Florence & The Machine...but what we have HERE is an album about finding your way home. Not at your port of call but to a lighthouse in the storm to fashion as your very own. Because true, fulfilling love, is a space you carve out for yourself amidst the chaos. The filling of that space with another comes later. Through lush string arrangements guided by dreamy, sophisticated melodies, Neko Case explores the weathered ennui of half a lifetime spent in search for this other:
"I'm not disturbed by romance - I'm disturbed by tides"
"A tide so high you don't notice that you're drinking sea water - till you see your mother in the brine"
Pressed forward by surging brass and wailing viola she boldly charges headlong through the storm. With such experience under her belt, she has no fear nor time for doubts and she collides with her trauma, pummeling her way to a better path forward:
"Of oily slick communion waves, screaming something she can't say - from her I learned to be cruel"
"I learned the look that goes right past the ones who love you..."
"As if there's no one standing there"
This search is contrasted by bright bursts of instrumental grandeur, its thrumming bass shifting as the churning waters of a midlife in flux. Its structure mirrors a storm at sea - with few hooks to latch onto, many tracks trading choruses for meandering structures - demanding both patience and attention. But rewarding them with salvation. There is emotional maturity and wisdom here as Neko Case proselytizes self-love as not only the gateway to romance - but more importantly - to life itself:
"If you think this is about romance: you're not listening."
"There's too much life for one lifetime...and only music lives forever."
Sweeping strings and keys that glitter with an optimistic wonder counterplays Neko Case's rich, weathered soprano, asking what it means to discover love in middle age. How does it change your outlook and perspective on life? For your damaged, preconceived notions to crumble in the face of a connection - to lover, life, or self - that cannot help to sweep you away? After all, hope is frightening when you've been beaten down, your well run dry. A hopelessness characterized by the harrowing hard rock of the title track, then explored by 'Oh Neglect,' dissecting our author's wide-eyed yearning and beaten-in trepidation like a jaded pollyanna.
What is remarkable about this album is how Neko Case makes her troubles feel as if they're your own. And in that process, how her healing, joy, and self-acceptance become a shared experience. This makes it not only a great work of art, but in its function, an act of love and connection. And I cannot think of a single thing we need more in days like these than that.
