Neko Case, one of the most distinctive voices in modern music, will release her ninth solo album Neon Grey Midnight Green this Friday, marking her first studio record in seven years.
Case, whose career has spanned more than a quarter of a century, has long been recognised for her fearless songwriting and evocative storytelling. Her latest work is already drawing glowing praise from critics. Pitchfork has described the album as “blossoming with awe,” while MOJO hailed it as a “dramatic ninth solo outing,” awarding it four stars.
Ahead of the release, Case has unveiled the track “Rusty Mountain,” a sweeping centrepiece that encapsulates the heart of the record. In it, she delivers the declaration: “We all deserve better than some love song.”
Since emerging in the late 1990s, Case has built a reputation for weaving together indie-rock grit and country-noir atmospherics, often shifting shape but never losing her core intensity. Across her catalogue, she has written from perspectives as diverse as human, animal and even elemental force – famously giving voice to a tornado.
Her music is not only an exploration of human emotion but also of the natural world, where lions, magpies, and bees often take centre stage alongside tales of survival, cruelty, and resilience.
Neon Grey Midnight Green is Case’s first studio album since 2018’s Hell-On, which The Guardian praised as “a pitch-perfect roar of female defiance.” For this new chapter, Case approached recording with a rawer sensibility, keeping in breaths and shirt sleeve rustlings in the final mix to capture the immediacy of live performance.
The majority of the record was tracked at her own Vermont studio, Carnassial Sound, with additional sessions in Denver alongside the PlainsSong Chamber Orchestra and in Portland, Oregon with Tucker Martine.
“There are so few producers who are women, non-binary, or trans,” Case explains. “People don’t think of us as an option. I’m proud to say I produced this record. It is my vision. It is my veto power. It is my taste.”
The album’s release comes in the same year as Case’s memoir The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, which debuted at #5 on the New York Times nonfiction best sellers list in January. The memoir, which recounts her unconventional upbringing “by two dogs and a space heater” in Washington state, has been celebrated for its sharp humour and emotional honesty.
Case is also composing the score for a musical adaptation of Thelma & Louise, personally chosen for the task by the film’s Academy Award-winning screenwriter Callie Khouri.
Neon Grey Midnight Green tracklist:
Destination
Tomboy Gold
Wreck
Winchester Mansion of Sound
An Ice Age
Neon Grey Midnight Green
Oh, Neglect…
Louise
Rusty Mountain
Little Gears
Baby, I’m Not (A Werewolf)
Match-Lit
Neon Grey Midnight Green will be released this Friday on digital and physical formats, including limited edition coloured vinyl.
Stay updated with your free Noise11.com daily music news email alert. Subscribe to Noise11 Music News here
Be the first to see NOISE11.com’s newest interviews and special features on YouTube. See things first—Subscribe to Noise11 on YouTube
Follow Noise11.com on social media:
Bluesky
Facebook – Comment on the news of the day
