Yep Roc
When ex-Plimsouls singer Peter Case began his solo career over 20 years ago he went for it in style. A who’s who of cool from Victoria Williams to Gurf Morlix to Roger McGuinn showed up on his first solo album all adding to the sound of a man who shed one style to grow a new one. It’s not that Case has shed his band or even his skin on this new release. Indeed the few key souls who do turn up like Richard Thompson and bluesman Carlos Guitarlos do it in style. It’s just that this sounds like the solo album Case has long flirted with but never quite nailed.
A social conscience turned modern lurks between notes from rich-toned guitars spilling out simple tales of homeless women in hospital gowns or of wealthy men killing poor women and buying their way home. Yet instead of limiting the view to stark hopelessness the disc flowers with the poetry of tune and syllable hiding gems of imagery like “Bare feet popping on a pinewood floor… music box is pretty with its piebald stripes / dust smote diamonds in a shaft of light.”
It’s music that could play comfortably with the repeat button engaged on a 100-mile drive while songs dance forward and take their own bow.
