by Michelle Liu, managing editor
Neko Case’s newest album, “The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You,” is quite a mouthful (although not nearly as long a title as, say, Fiona Apple’s “When the Pawn…”). As her latest album, “The Worse Things Get” is entrenched in autobiography–her songs are close to the heart. The acapella “Nearly Midnight, Honolulu” touches on her witnessing a mother yelling at her child, which in turn prompts Case to muse on her own childhood and relationship with her parents–both of whom, along with Case’s grandmother, passed away as Case worked on the album; Case’s arresting voice is a haunting and painful apology. The songs are messy, such as the aggression in “Man” and the indefinite sense of self of “I’m From Nowhere;” jarring sides of emotion overlap, crafting Case’s complexity as a whole. Things are just a little bit off and dark in “The Worse Things Get,” but Case isn’t going for the right angle–just the real one.
