Neal Casal – Anytime Tomorrow

In the spirit of finesse pitchers in baseball, let’s call Neal Casal a finesse rocker. Across his seven albums — most of them put out by Glitterhouse, the German label that originally issued Anytime Tomorrow before this stateside release — Casal has shown an unhurried grace in the way he lets his songs unfold and roam.

Anytime Tomorrow features a return to the more fleshed-out, periodically gospelish sound of Casal’s debut Fade Away Diamond Time, with John Ginty’s ringing, cascading keyboards perfectly complementing Casal’s exceptionally clear vocals. It’s a combination of late ’70s Jackson Browne (tell me that “Time Down The Wind” doesn’t sound like a Browne title) and the Jayhawks, circa 1995, best represented by the memory-soaked pair of “Fell On Hard Times” and “Sweetvine”. Adding juice to that description are Casal’s other backers: Bob Glaub played bass on most of Browne’s albums since The Pretender, while drummer Don Heffington and the omnipresent Greg Leisz supported the Jayhawks on Tomorrow The Green Grass.

Casal has undergone a lot of road-testing for a guy just into his 30s, beginning with a downplayed late-teens stint as a member of Southern rockers Blackfoot and most recently logging miles with Beachwood Sparks. Fittingly, his songs are filled with highways and towns left behind, and even gasoline-filled shoes — that last image on the gorgeous “Lucky Stars”, which recalls the roots-boy soul of Jeb Loy Nichols. But Casal’s musical wanderings are never aimless, and he sure creates some lovely sounds along the way.