Neko Case Hell-On 2LP (Vinyl)

TAS Rated 4/5 Music, 3.5/5 Sonics in the January 2019 Issue of The Absolute Sound!

Double LP!

Producer/singer/songwriter Neko Case has won a large and loyal audience for her smoky, sophisticated vocals and the downcast beauty of her music. Now more than 23 years into her musical calling, Case is the consummate career artist--fearless and versatile, with a fierce work ethic and a constant drive to search deeper within herself for creative growth.

Anti- releases Neko Case's Hell-On, an indelible collection of colorful, enigmatic storytelling that features some of her most daring, through-composed arrangements to date. Produced by Neko with help from Bjorn Yttling (Peter Bjorn & John), Hell-On is simultaneously the most accessible and most challenging album in a rich and varied career that’s offered plenty of both. Rife with withering self-critique, muted reflection, anthemic affirmation, and her unique poetic sensibility, the 12 tracks of Hell-On features collaborations with artists such as Joey Burns, Beth Ditto, Kelly Hogan, KD Lang, AC Newman, Mark Lanegan, Laura Veirs, and more.

"There were a few challenges during the making of this record from small (scheduling difficulties, and occasional miscommunication) to large (my house burning down while I was overseas). But none of them are the story of this recording, the songs are the story. They are my best self. They are everything I've worked for since I was a kid, whether I knew it or not... The songs are who I believe myself to be and that will change, but for now that’s how it is and I’m very satisfied with that." - Neko Case

"In countless ways, the self-produced Hell-On simply encapsulates Case's own singular vision. A quarter-century into her career, her words still feel intensely personal and utterly oblique, as if she's whispering her darkest secrets in Sanskrit. But she also remains endlessly quotable (ex: "God is a lusty tire fire") even at her most elusive, in songs that unfold like puzzles she's still solving herself." - NPR

"It’s a sweeping, lovely album, another example of what Case has done so well for so long." - Stereogum

"Case has been labeled "country noir" but that facile term gives short shrift to the complexity and consistently fine quality of her songs. Her soaring phrases resemble Patsy Cline's, but that vibrato-less voice, sometimes creamy and sometimes militant, is all her own, fitting naturally into reverberant, layered arrangements that would bury other singers...Every album of hers has at least one gut punch in the lyrics, and here she drops that bomb in the autobiographical "Curse of the I-5 Corridor," where she's joined by Mark Lanegan. Her soul-baring comes from humane honesty, not self-indulgence, and it sheds a soft light on the same weaknesses in all of us... a record to spend the rest of your life with." Stephen Estep, The Absolute Sound, January 2019

Features:
• Double LP
• Triple gatefold

Selections:
1. Hell-On
2. Last Lion Of Albion
3. Halls Of Sarah
4. Bad Luck
5. Curse Of The I-5 Corridor
6. Gumball Blue
7. Dirty Diamond
8. Oracle Of The Maritimes
9. Winnie
10. Sleep All Summer
11. My Uncle's Navy
12. Pitch Or Honey