Middle Cyclone

1	This Tornado Loves You 3:20
2	The Next Time You Say Forever 1:46
3	People Got a Lotta Nerve 2:33
4	Polar Nettles 2:26
5	Vengeance Is Sleeping 3:22
6	Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth 2:14
7	Middle Cyclone 3:05
8	Fever 3:18
9	Magpie to the Morning 2:44
10	I'm an Animal 2:21
11	Prison Girls 5:25
12	Don't Forget Me 3:09
13	The Pharaohs 3:37
14	Red Tide 2:53
15	Marais la Nuit Live 31:39

All Music Guide

Neko Case looks formidable on the cover of Middle Cyclone, brandishing a sword in one hand while crouching low on a muscle car's hood. It's mostly camp, of course -- the sort of superwoman image Quentin Tarantino might have used for Death Proof's ad campaign -- but it also draws contrast with the songwriter's previous albums, two of which featured moody shots of Case sprawled on the floor, ostensibly knocked out. Middle Cyclone isn't the polar opposite of Blacklisted's downcast Americana; there are still moments of heartbreak on this release, and Case channels the sad cowgirl blues with all the rustic nuance of Patsy Cline. Multiple years in the New Pornographers' employ have considerably brightened her outlook, however, and Middle Cyclone balances its melancholia with some of the most pop-oriented choruses of Case's career. "I'm a man-man-maneater," she asserts during "People Got a Lotta Nerve," a snappy nugget of harmonies and jangled guitar that helps strengthen her Mercury Cougar-riding cover pose. The mammal metaphors continue with "I'm an Animal," where a coed choir supports the melody with a wordless, hooky refrain. Such songs are still rife with earth tones, perhaps preferring the Southern comfort of roots music to the sparkle of Carl Newman's power pop, but their venture into brighter territory is both assured and tuneful.

Of course, Neko Case already explored the animal world with 2006's Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, and Middle Cyclone devotes more time to weather, nature, and the stormy atmospherics of her backup band. There are few voices as hauntingly beautiful as Case's alto, a siren call fashioned from country's might and pop's melody, and she trains those tones over a number of semi-ballads, from the cinematic "Prison Girls" (a country-noir love letter to someone with "long shadows and gunpowder eyes") to the sparse title track. She does a surprise duet with chirping birds during "Polar Nettles" -- a result of the pastoral recording sessions, which took place in a barn -- before offering up a cover of Sparks' "Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth," which very well may be the album's mission statement. There's still room to tackle love from the perspective of different characters -- a man in "Vengeance Is Sleeping," a disbeliever in "The Next Time You Say Forever," a smitten wind vortex in "This Tornado Loves You" -- but nature remains at the forefront of Middle Cyclone, whose 14 songs conclude with a half-hour field recording of chirping crickets and frogs. Moody, cinematic, and engaging throughout, Cyclone is another tour de force from Neko Case, if not as immediately arresting as Fox Confessor. Andrew Leahey

USA Today

Delightfully fresh, in both senses of the word.

New York Times Magazine

“Middle Cyclone” — named after the area near the middle of a tornado in which air rushes straight up — comes close to immediate accessibility, but it is never pat, never ear Splenda. It has a Brechtian-sounding love song in march rhythm, two or three waltzes, a sweet Byrds-like salvo of opening guitars and vocal effects from wild to coy. Daniel Menaker