Neko Case – The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You

In the four years since the release of 2009’s impressive ‘Middle Cyclone’, Neko Case has had much to contend with. The death of her grandmother was followed shortly after by the passing of her parents, with whom she had a reportedly difficult relationship, informing songs on this album such as the opener ‘Wild Creatures’ and the spare, haunting, ‘Nearly Midnight, Honalulu’, an account of habitual parental neglect. These events were followed by a period of depression during which Case retreated to her ranch in Vermont, spending her days reading and writing the songs that would make up this album.

Possessed of a voice which, when in full flow can seem more like a hurricane capable of levelling cities than a mere human effect, she has often previously spun magical realist tales and third-person narrative stories. Here though, she has made a far more overtly personal album than any of her previous works, and in stripping away some of this artifice, she has probably made her strongest record to date. The songs here deliver tight punches when needed (see ‘Man’) and are never allowed to overstay their welcome, a flaw which has sometimes marred previous albums.

Case has spoken of how, in the murk of her depression, she was barely able to listen to music any more as she was no longer able to find joy in the sound. The unexpected exception to this however, was ragtime jazz. In album closer ‘Ragtime’, a tribute to this unlikely source of strength and endurance, she recounts the experience of listening to the stereo on a blizzard-blowing city night to hear the piano playing ‘Summertime from 1935’, soothing her with the words ‘don’t you hurry, don’t you worry kid, we’ll be seeing you…when you’re ready’. To which she responds, mustering strength to call back through the decades, ‘I’ll feel myself when I’m ready, I’ll reveal myself invincible soon’. It’s a statement of defiance in the face of depression and grief which hints at where the strength of that voice comes from and leaves little doubt that she will emerge, electric and on her own terms.