Neko Case – Neon Grey Midnight Green (Anti-) (13th Floor Album Review)
After a seven-year hiatus, the fearless Neko Case returns with Neon Grey Midnight Green, perhaps her most fully realized and ambitious album yet.
Across its sprawling soundscape of country, folk, art rock, indie rock, and pop, the record creates an alchemy that resists neat classification. Case crafts a work that feels both cryptic and familiar. It is not always an album to sing along with, but one that draws listeners into her singular world of imagistic lyrics, bold production, and emotional contradictions. If the overall mood can be summed up, it might be described as “country noir.”
Her lyrics remain characteristically idiosyncratic, often puzzling yet carrying an uncanny intimacy. Much like Lana Del Rey, Mitski, or Florence + The Machine, Case makes music that feels cinematic, visceral, and deeply personal. Each track stands alone, but together they form an immersive journey that feels complete.
The opener, Destination, plunges listeners straight into Case’s narrative universe. At nearly five minutes long, it resists conventional hooks or melodies. Instead, it unfolds like a sprawling vignette, carried by chamber orchestra arrangements and surreal lines such as “Your tongue is a chewed straw / You’re all period blood and soundcheck blues.” This is not a song meant for sing-alongs. It is one meant to be traveled through.
By contrast, Tomboy Gold is brisk and jazz-inflected, filled with saxophone flourishes, echoes, and distortions that feel playful and jagged. The mix of spoken word and fragmented melody reinforces Case’s refusal to follow expected patterns.
The lead single, Wreck, is deceptively uplifting. Violins, layered harmonies, and bright chords buoy the track, yet beneath the surface lies a melancholic edge. Case excels at pairing joy with sorrow in the same song. Lyrics like “I’m a meter shattering around you and I’m sorry, but I’ve become a solar system since I found you” turn the song into a bittersweet ode to imperfect love.
One of the record’s most striking moments is Winchester Mansion. For much of its length, Case leans into somber falsettos and hushed chords, creating a ghostly hymn about memory and mortality. Then, in an exhilarating twist, the music pivots into a nursery-rhyme refrain: “Down down baby, down by the roller coaster.” The arrangement quickens and brightens. The effect is breathtaking, as if moving from Lana Del Rey’s Arcadia into the rustic expansiveness of Fleet Foxes in an instant. It is a standout and arguably the emotional centerpiece of the album.
Ice Age begins with an acapella intro drenched in ballroom echo before expanding into layered instrumentation. It manages to be both intimate and grand, closing with an abstract touch that reflects Case’s more avant-garde instincts.
The title track, Neon Grey Midnight Green, is the most explosive moment on the album. It shifts from calm country-folk textures into snarling alt-rock that at times recalls the feral energy of Amyl and the Sniffers. Case sounds completely unrestrained, snarling and screaming through her trademark animal imagery.
Meanwhile, Oh, Neglect blends orchestral strings with biting lyricism. “I’ve worked every second to please you like I’m possessed” captures its theme of devotion paired with invisibility, turning pain into clever wordplay.
Other highlights include the elegiac Rusty Mountain, which feels like a near-love song from one musician to another, and the closer Match-Lit, a dreamy and mysterious track filled with subtle tributes to lost friends. These songs complete the record’s exploration of memory, grief, and resilience.
In the end, Neon Grey Midnight Green cannot be easily explained. It confounds and comforts, puzzles and moves, all at once. It is intimate yet vast, strange yet familiar. Even twenty-five years into her career, Neko Case is still building universes that listeners may never fully understand but cannot help returning to orbit.
Azrie Azizi
Neon Grey Midnight Green is out now on Anti- Records
Click here to listen to the 13th Floor MusicTalk interview with Neko Case
