harry Wrote:
The Dreaded Marco Wrote:
This "Neko's pedestrian voice" nonsense baffles me. I couldn't disagree more.
I like her... but I get why some have a hard time. Her voice has a shiny surface, and there's a calculation in her technique... at least in her solo work. Nina Nastasia or Lucinda Williams seem in the same vein, but more raggedly attractive. In her perfection, Neko reminds me of mid-period Linda Ronstadt, when I keep hoping for Patsy Cline.
I was fairly "meh" after the first two listens of that album. Nothing stuck, and her voice didn't overwhelm me. I'd heard "country-ish" albums like this before.
And then I put it in headphones while driving around PoetLand this summer, and one song broke through... Star Witness (track 2). That chorus, with those layers, just absolutely broke my heart it was so beautiful. Thinking about it makes my leg hair stand up. Once that was in the door, it quickly snuck the rest of the album in after it. I literally started a ride one day not caring about the album, and finished thinking it was pretty goddam good. Talking to Ayah about relationships one night, I caught myself thinking of Teenage Feeling, and how appropriate the lyrics were for the frustration she was describing. It just fit so well with my summer, I guess, and perhaps I give her too much credit for what ammounts to just good timing. Perhaps not.
More specifically, I enjoy the little mistakes on it. I like how the guitarist gets ahead of the beat for a few seconds on That Teenage Feeling (1:30). I like how she occasionally pushes a note sharp, and left it in. I like the level of playing on the whole work - competent, solid, a little dirty around the edges, and never anything approaching "slick." I like how, in the vocal intro to John Saw That Number, all the accumulated background noise of what I count to be 4 vocal tracks is left in, creating a subtle whoosh of noise at the track's start that any self-respecting studio engineer would normally crush with the quickness.
It would seem to me that this album was aiming to be a personal, feeling, emotional album... confessional, apologetic, less than arm's length. Little "mistakes" like these go a surprisingly long way towards that end. It makes the songs feel lived-in. Compared to something that's been produced and polished to a high shine, Fox Confessor is a hot chick in no makeup and a flannel shirt that makes every other girl in the place look like dog shit.
I just scrolled up and realized I've been rambling. Apologies - I really liked this, and I didn't feel like the blurbs went into any real depth about how it sounds or feels, though maybe nobody's curious anyway.
