Six albums deep
into her solo career, Neko Case’s earthen voice is synonymous with perpetuity.
The New Pornographers member delivering a lamenting ballad from some 19th
Century saloon is as probable as storming through a set at South by Southwest circa
2013. In a muddy swamp or ornate concert hall she’s equally comfortable. Case
is a conjurer and her voice is the conduit. Odd then she began her career
sitting behind drum-kits in Canadian bands Cub and Maow. Her reticence to take
to the mic conveys a lack of confidence. If there’s a touchstone between this reluctance
and Case’s new LP The Worst Things Get…
it’s the lack of confidence.
Opener “Wild Creatures” finds Case
“fighting to be wise”. A mother’s reassuring hands fails to corral Case as a slow
electric country trot becomes a gallop. Case
is quizzical during follow-up “Night
Still Comes”. Masonry can't make sense of Case’s state, nor can she, always
tilting things to an unrecognizable angle. Middle
Cyclone saw Case on a Beatrix
Kiddo revenge quest, but she sheathes the samurai sword here. Her insatiable
“bloodlust” becomes a thirst for understanding, in hopes of restoring her declining
confidence.
“Man” is a
breakneck track where Case discovers understanding through unrelenting poise. I’ve
toyed with the notion: Case is Feist if she didn’t take s*** off of anyone, and
“Man” drives the point home at 110MPH in a dirt-kicking ’67 Chevy. Feist couldn’t
commit to finger-wagging on “Limit
to Your Love”; Case aided by liquid confidence inverts a finger to those
who spurn her. “And if I'm dips**t drunk on pink perfume, Then I'm the man in
the f***ing moon', Cause you didn’t' know what a man was, until I showed you” she
firebreathes near the song’s end. It’s a kick you in the teeth moment, leaving
you chuckling as the warm blood begins to flow from your mouth.
Quests inevitably
have their peaks and valleys and The
Worse Things Get is no different. Subdued follow-up “I’m From Nowhere” hits the
E-brake after the wild-ride of “Man”. Case’s considered strumming brings the
doubt back like a bad check, she’s not sure “what I wanna be” and stares intently
at the ground while admitting to being “from nowhere.” At first glance “wasted
it complaining like a trust-fund kid” is lacerating, but further inspection
reveals a bubo.
However, a diminutive
bubo can be just as ferociousness as the scant “Calling Cards” and “Afraid” prove. They’re two
songs of several on The Worse Things Get
to clock in at less than three minutes and still manage to wring out the last
drops of agony. “Afraid” attempts to “Man”s swagger via double-edged aphorisms:
“you are beautiful and you are alone.” Only subtle piano and autoharp flourishes
accompany Case, assuring solitude. “We’ll all be together, even when we’re not together,”
Case sings on the muted “Calling Cards”. Rifling through scenes of a long-distance
romance Case’s lens lingers on the final shot, “I’ve got calling cards from twenty
years ago.” For all the power distance lords over a relationship, it’s time
that matters more.
The quest has a
layover in the Pacific when her attention diverts to motherhood for the
sobering acapella number “Nearly
Midnight Honolulu” One impetus for the album’s constant confusion are the passings
of Case’s mother and father, neither of whom Case was close to. "I don't
have any love for either of my parents, so having them die was extra-weird,"
Case admitted in a Guardian interview.
Case displays the “weirdness”, detailing an irate mother in the Hawaii capital
screaming at her child “get the fuck away from me, why don’t you ever shut up?”
Case’s voice is noticeably disarmed throughout until the stunning turn, when a
phalanx of disembodied voices joins her. The sudden accompaniment suggests this
isn’t the first time that phrase is uttered at a child and it won’t be the
last. Turning to the adolescent to say sorry, she also affirms “it happens
every day.” She’s not offering up sonnets, rather a look into her own autobiography.
Closer “Ragtime” allows Case to achieve
a modicum of confidence, one tempered by the affirmation “I am one and the
same, I am useful and strange.” Lindsay Zoladz’s Pitchfork
review rightly compared the “brassy swell” to the eternal “Crimson & Clover”. However,
any musical commonality takes a backseat to lyrical overlap. The 60s classic
was haunted by doubt “no I don’t hardly know her” and the same can be said of
Case. Tommy James & The Shondells find confidence when “she comes walking
over.” Confidence can’t come overnight.
“There is
absence, there is lack” folk transplant Bonnie “Prince” Billy once warbled. The Worse Things Get… is focused on
lack: of confidence, of love, of parental guidance though it’s never absent. Neko
Case is there in the midst of it all. She may chase her muse to the four
corners, but she’s not going anywhere.
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