Neko Case Unleashes The Fox

There's only one downside to seeing a performer as great as Neko Case four days into the year: it's all downhill from here. Case, the erstwhile Pornographer and honorary Canadian, swung through Toronto on Wednesday to play one of the smallest venues this city has to offer.

With the room packed to the gills, the Chicago resident put on a show that the few lucky enough to see it are unlikely to forget anytime soon. Flanked by steel guitarist/banjo player Jon Rauhouse, guitarist Paul Rigby, stand-up bassist Tom V. Ray, Low Skies drummer Jason Creps and Visqueen singer Rachel Flotard, Case used her 90-minute set primarily to showcase songs from her forthcoming Mint Records release, Fox Confessor Brings The Flood.

Having heard the record, I can say with fair certainty that it's going to be one of the year's best. New songs, such as "Hold On, Hold On" and "Star Witness" garnered as much applause throughout the evening as favourites like "Furnace Room Lullaby," but it was Case and Flotard's between-song banter about everything from dangerous giraffes to Bryan Adams that made the show infinitely watchable.

Sporting a Dr. Pepper t-shirt and a glittering cardigan, Case even played down her own sparkling appearance. "I'm sporting a bit of a gut tonight," she joked at one point. "I'm trying to make the whole gut thing sexy, basically because I don't want to lose any weight."

Though Case was rather unassuming during the banter portions of the show, it only made her voice more shocking to hear in contrast during the actual songs. It's as if she simply turned her singing voice on and off with a switch. And while she claimed she was suffering from a cold, her stunning vocal chords didn't waver once.

I could go on, but Case will be back again, playing to much bigger audiences than the crowd of 200 at the back of the Rivoli. With Feist likely heading back to France this year to follow-up Let It Die and Cat Power's decision to strip the edge from her sound, Case is poised to be crowned indie queen of 2006.