I have no idea what is going on in this album - all I know is I catch glimpses of her world like looking through gaps in a fance, and I'm fascinated by the world she creates. It's a strange sounding album, soaked in reverb and 50s guitars rumbling and twanging, with a really noir feel to the whole thing - songs that seem to touch on loss and separation and death. Think Patsy Cline meets Nick Cave. Her voice is amazing, and the songs are full of hooks and strange, poetic and dreamlike images: 'the sidewalk skins my knees, there's glass in the thermos and blood on my jeans, nickels and dimes of the Fourth of July, roll off in a crooked line'. The whole thing is also pefectly packaged - the lyrics are not provided. Instead, you get images that look like polaroids of old farm equipment and abandoned warehouses, an explosion in the distance. And strange drawings. And I have no idea what the Fox Confessor is, and why he or she brings the flood. All I know is that this is the album that began my romance with Neko Case, and it will endure.