Her arms hang at her sides, but not idly; she forms her hands almost into fists. She doesnt sway or shift. Her only movements occur from the shoulders up, as she measures the weight and potency of a drawn-out vowel, adjusting her nearness to the microphone.
Ms. Case assumed this coiled stance more than a few times on Monday night, in her first of two shows at the Nokia Theater. It happened in The Pharaohs, a desolate lovers lament, and again in Prison Girls, a song with enough disoriented menace and twangy reverb to evoke the mood of a David Lynch film. And it was only appropriate for Vengeance Is Sleeping, the evenings wrenching first encore.
I dragged the clanging notion that I was nobody, Ms. Case sang, repeating nobody as a diminishing echo.
All those moments came courtesy of her most recent album, Middle Cyclone (Anti-), which makes an exquisite case for guardedness. The show similarly featured songs of admonition, hurt and regret, delivered with a declarative gleam. In her singing, and occasionally her guitar playing, Ms. Case created the feeling of a fragile accord between muted reflection and full-blown crisis. And like any heir of Patsy Cline a receding but still relevant influence she kept the lid on the boiling pot, if only barely.
Neko Case performs on Monday in Ithaca, N.Y.; on Tuesday in Cleveland; and next Wednesday in Charleston, W.V.; nekocase.com.
