*** Neko Case & Her Boyfriends

FURNACE ROOM LULLABY

(Bloodshot)

Hipsters have been stumbling across pop culture's history in thrift shops for generations. Something looks or sounds cool (Esquivel albums, dragster magazines, whatever) and suddenly an entire sound emerges from the dollar bins, the whole mess recontextualized, recycled, redeemed. Reduced, sometimes. Whatever music (and clothes) our parents were embarrassed by we'll happily explore.

Which is how punk rock periodically bangs into country music. Neko Case, once a drummer for the Vancouver punk-pop trio Maow, is on her way to becoming a formidable singer of country torch songs. Like Patsy Cline apostle k.d. lang, Case emerged from Canada, and like Cline herself, she lived in Virginia (hence her 1997 debut, The Virginian). Even so, for wellsprings of inspiration, she cites the Muffs or gospel music as readily as she does Cline. Case has a pleasingly limber voice with reasonable range and a solid instinct for phrasing. Her debut was sprinkled with tasteful covers; Furnace Room Lullaby offers only co-written originals. All of this is enormously promising. But Case still wants for a moment of greatness, for a phrase -- written or sung -- that might become her signature, for that instant of discovery when she is no longer learning, but doing. And it will come. Probably.

-- Grant Alden