Anytime Tomorrow
The six years that fell between Neal Casal's now-deleted 1995 debut,Fade Away Diamond Time, and the appearance ofAnytime Tomorrowin the U.S. suggests laziness or an exceedingly slow muse. That's hardly the case. This New Jersey-bred singer-songwriter has seen a total of seven albums released in Europe since the mid-'90s while being mostly ignored by American labels. Casal's groove-wiseNeil Young/Tom Petty-style rock carries his sweet, rich vocals through songs that dig deeper than the melancholy a less inspired artist might begin and end with. Indeed, his visions range from the romantic escape of "Oceanview" and "No One Above You" to much bleaker scenarios of betrayal, dislocation, and crime: in "Fell on Hard Times," "Eddy and Diamonds," and "Camarillo," the geography of home is a curse. Casal has shared stages with the likes ofRyan Adams, andAnytime Tomorrowbegs to be discovered by listeners hungering for another artist with a glowingly personal take on country-rock-whatever sources.--Rickey Wright