As you may recall from her barn-burning set at the Regina Folk Festival in August my first impression of Neko Case’s new material was that it was rather rockist. It turns out I was half-right.
Case’s latest album The Worse Things Get The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight The More I Love You is now out on Anti- Records and, as has been her wont the last number of albums, she follows her own peculiar muse wherever it decides to take her. Here that means swinging from the downright punk rock first single to a curse-laden a capella number that is among the most beautiful songs she’s ever created.
That isn’t necessarily a new development; go back to her earliest records and Case’s sound has cut a similarly pendulous swath. From the first track of her first record, “Timber,” she’s managed to pull off modern country radio-sounding numbers; effective rockabilly swagger (on a Queen cover, of all things); songs that incorporate bluesy piano; and rollicking pop-rock (most keenly displayed on her previous record Middle Cyclone, which featured two absolutely perfect pop songs in “People Gotta Lot Of Nerve” and “This Tornado Loves You”).
Then there are songs like Blacklisted‘s “Deep Red Bells”, one of Case’s most affecting songs (and also the subject of probably my all-time favourite post on this web site as written by Tanis) and also unmistakably Case with its reverberating guitars, the cinematic scope of its storytelling, and Case’s trademark epic singing. Or perhaps her best-ever song “Set Out Running,” from her first truly great record Furnace Room Lullaby. It’s still front-and-centre in her live set and still sounds as sweet as ever: she uses her full range during the patient, twangy number that shows just how evocative that voice can be.
It was the lead single “Man” that piqued my interest in the new record. As I said before it’s pretty goddamn punk rock; the furious lead guitar provided by Merge artist M. Ward (Zooey Deschanel’s musical partner in She & Him) propels the quickest and most aggressive track of her career, an amplification of past rockers like “Karoline” and “Misfire.” It’s a blistering screed against the powers that be. She wants to smash the patriarchy, goddamnit, and this song is all it takes for me to get in line behind her.
“I’m a man, as in a citizen of all mankind,” she rails, before unleashing an unexpected and pointed f-word in the bridge. “You didn’t know what a man was until I showed you,” she insists, and while I may not know what that means I believe her.
That’s what Case’s voice does; it compels, it convinces, it cajoles, it coaxes. It’s a powerfully-evocative tool that, for maybe the first time, Case is using to explore and explain herself. It works on several songs here in a rock and roll context (much as it does for The New Pornographers’ brand of power pop) and for her more tempered, contemplative numbers.
Consider the aching lullaby “Night Still Comes,” which precedes “Man” as the second track. It’s Case laying herself bare before the listener, outlining the depression that fed the writing of this record.
“My brain makes drugs to keep me slow. A hilarious joke for some dead pharaoh but now not even the masons know what drug will keep night from coming,” she laments. But not even the dark of night can hold a candle to the mighty first of self-doubt: “If I puked up some sonnets would you call me a miracle? I’m gonna go where my urge leads no more, swallowed waist-deep in the core of the forest; arboreal feast, let it finish me please.” The song’s gradual piano moves easily against shifting drums, a lovely cadence that leads well into the strummed power chords of the chorus.
Not quite hushed but still gentle and delicate as can be is “Nearly Midnight, Honolulu,” an a capella duet of sorts between Case and back-up singer Kelly Hogan (herself a solo artist but Case’s long-time musical companion; the two are practically soul mates, for good reason). Another purely autobiographical number, it tells the story of Case’s encounter with a mother and her child at a shuttle stop in Honolulu while waiting to go to the airport.
“Get the fuck away from me,” Case quotes the child’s mother, berating the kid. “Don’t you ever shut up?”
It’s a harsh statement unfurling from Case and Hogan’s angelic voices, but I suppose that’s probably the point. Case goes on to attempt to offer the child some reassurance, some words of advice to keep in mind as they get older (even if no one believes that their mother never loved them).
“Some days you feel like a cartoon and people will rush to make excuses for you. You’ll hear yourself complain but don’t you ever shut up. Please, kid, have your say because I still love you, even if I don’t see you again.”
The defined nature of that first line suggests that Case speaks from experience; some of the articles and interviews I read about the record have stated that Case didn’t get along from her parents. Maybe she sees more of herself in the song’s subject than she’d like.
As seems to be the current trend Case brings a horn section into the mix in a delightfully effective way. “Bracing For Sunday” has a great, baritoney brass sound in between verses, a sassy and propulsive feature that sets off the distorted rock guitar that runs through the bulk of the song. It’s also a great story; the lyrics depict a woman (or a man; Case plays fast and loose with gender, even when she’s singing from the first person) falling victim to the lure of the city lights. Murder, sex, and general debauchery ensue, with Case proclaiming either assertively or reluctantly, “I’m a Friday night girl bracing for Sunday to come.”
The horns come back for the record’s triumphant closer “Ragtime,” about as glorious a closing track as a record ever had. Gradual palm-muted electric guitars build tension throughout the song as Case outlines a blizzard seen from the shelter of her home, how “it always goes sideways in the city.” Case hides from the elements as Gershwin’s “Summertime” streams out from her radio, somehow shielding her from her own mortality and the constant spectre of insanity that always seems to chase us in times of struggle (“Don’t you hurry, don’t you worry kid; we’ll be seeing you. We’ll see you when you’re ready.”)
But Gershwin’s song, seemingly as old as time and as pervasive as anything any man has ever written, ensures her protection; it winds her up in “a sleep cocoon” where she bides her time until she’s ready to emerge invincible. But that can only come by accepting that there are positives to be gained from her state of emotional disrepair: “I am one and the same. I am useful and strange. There’s a wisdom that’s woe and a woe that is madness,” she insists, repeating the chant alongside a fanfare of horns, the kind of horns that accompany a hero returning home from battle. For all the troubles she may have gone through in the making of this record it serves as Case’s moment of triumph, her acceptance of things that she couldn’t prevent and can’t reverse. You can practically see her spine straightening and her shoulders pulling back, her confidence and self-assurance returning anew.
The fact that Case went through some personal hardship before making this album may or may not be a vital piece of information; she certainly seems to be writing more autobiographically than she ever has before but she’s also an incredibly consistent artist. Everything from Furnace Room Lullaby forward is the work of an incredibly gifted musician finding what works and turning it over and over in her hands to expose every nook and cranny, the details gradually coming into increasingly-stark detail. She’s a modern master and The Worse Things Get… is as good as she’s gotten.
Pick up your Neko Case albums from her web store or iTunes.
