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

Starting out as a belter of power pop with Canada’s New Pornographers (with whom she occasionally still performs), US-born Neko Case has slowly evolved into an alt.country/country-noir singer-songwriter of considerable power and prowess.

In truth, for the past 15 years Case has been pigeonholed as one of many singer-songwriters most likely to succeed. But it’s been a long haul, and up to about five years ago you’d have had to wonder how much longer it would take for people to really take notice.

2009's Middle Cyclone did the trick. The Grammy-nominated Top 3 hit in the US Billboard charts brought Case to a much wider audience. Her new album should easily continue that climb. The only thing unwieldy about The Worse Things Get . . . is its title.

Case's alt.country credentials, while always impeccable, have mutated into ruggedly honest pop/rock. Some have likened her to a more defiantly self-determined version of Kirsty MacColl, and you can see why with songs as brash and unashamedly direct as Man, Night Still Comes, Local Girl, Madonna of the Wasps, Magpie to the Morning and Nearly Midnight, Honolulu.

Dropping strategically placed F bombs always help to emphasise certain things, of course, and it's not surprsing that in the lead-up to the making of this album, Case experienced some years of grief (caused, notably, by the death of her father). If that gives the songs an edge, then so be it. Those into well-chosen covers, however, need no further proof of Case's perturbed emotions via her rendition of Nico's Afraid ("you are beautiful and you are alone"). Neko covers Nico: beautifully, spectrally? You read it here first.

Helped out by members of My Morning Jacket, Camera Obscura and Calexico, and solo mavericks such as M Ward, Howe Gelb and former Mudhoney guitarist Steve Turner, Case has delivered a record of stunning honesty in a manner neither sympathetic nor simpering. Quite simply, it's the finest hour of her darkest moments. nekocase.com
Download: Afraid, Local Girl, Magpie to the Morning