Neon Grey Midnight Green

Neko Case albums are growers, and I do not mean this negatively. Quite the opposite. She makes music for repeated, intense listening, figuring out the turns of phrase and always being surprised when the heart’s blood seeps out of the steel wool her pen concocts. Neon Grey Midnight Green is her lushest and refreshingly least penetrable record yet. It took me five listens and seeing her live to understand that opener “Destination” was written for the trans and queer communities that fill her with “envy and wonder.” When eventually the line “Most of all I love you because you don’t pretend it doesn’t hurt/Waiting for the world to catch up and see you for your worth” finally sat concrete in my brain I burst into tears. The best songs on this album do this; the panic attack in slow motion of “An Ice Age”, the almost David Byrne-like sly shout delivery of “I’m not your backdoor man!” in the title track, and the heartbreaking ode to a spider in “Little Gears”. It is patient music. Patient for the listener to keep coming back and learning the same lesson over and over until something else clicks. And we’re changed.