- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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MagnetSep 19, 2013Almost every inch of The Worse Things Get is stout and strong-willed. [No. 102, p.52]
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Sep 9, 2013There are hooks here, folks, and literalism fan that I am, I say they're most effective on the strictly reportorial "Nearly Midnight, Honolulu" and the lost-love "Calling Cards."
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Sep 9, 2013The Worse Things Get is a no-brainer Album of the Year.
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Sep 6, 2013On The Worse Things Get, there’s not a weak song.
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Sep 6, 2013On this, her latest and most emotionally charged album, she's managed to create a painful outpouring of honesty, one that strikes that coveted balance of both melodic and lyrical expression; her message is equally powerful from each direction.
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UncutAug 30, 2013On The Worse Things Get, Case asserts herself less in a literal sense, but paints the most emboldening and endearing portrait of herself yet. [Oct 2013, p.76]
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Aug 30, 2013Case has proven time and again that she has the songwriting chops to match her earthy, superlative voice, but never with such authority.
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Oct 4, 2013Challenging, enigmatic, and melodic don't always go together, but coupled with Case's sleek vocals, they make The Worse Things Get ... a marvel.
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Sep 3, 2013It’s music, fighting to be wild.
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Sep 12, 2013The Worse Things Get is a listen that tears and breaks, an album defiant and loud as often as it is anxious and sad.
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Sep 5, 2013Somehow, The Worse Things Get is Case’s tightest record and also her strangest. With its off-kilter arrangements and eccentric turns of phrase, it’s a world unto itself.
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Q MagazineJan 27, 2014Her latest album is a little more conventional but no less arresting. [Oct 2013, p.99]
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Oct 22, 2013The Worse Things Get is powerful and assured, and in making true of its promise--to fight harder, and to love one’s self in the face of adversity--it pulls off one of the hardest feats there is.
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MojoSep 19, 2013A new depth to her prickly but previously sometimes brattish lyrics, a grown-up album by a real grown-up who knows how to sugar-coat a pill for mass consumption. [Oct 2013, p.95]
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Sep 5, 2013A listless cloud of heartbreak penetrates every crack and many moments teeter on the maudlin, but The Worse Things Get has fight, too.
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Sep 5, 2013Vitality courses through every song on her sixth album.
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Sep 5, 2013Exposing her honest and disarmed self more than ever, Neko proceeds to open old wounds.
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Sep 5, 2013The Worse Things Get is another excellent album from Case on a resumé that’s full of excellent albums.
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Sep 3, 2013The melodies are forthright, the arrangements are hand played, and Ms. Case’s voice is open and robust, with the richness of prime Linda Ronstadt and Patsy Cline.
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Sep 3, 2013This is the unusual album that’s beautiful and ugly, tender but tough, and that much more rewarding because of it.
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Sep 3, 2013It's a tribute to Case's ever-growing strength as a songwriter that she refuses to take the sharp edges off the vicissitudes her songs depict while still acknowledging the humor and occasional beauty of those edges.
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Sep 3, 2013Neko Case’s sixth album is typically sumptuous and lusciously heart-rending.
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Sep 3, 2013It’s a record that often elevates the listener through its integrity and intensity, and sometimes grates through its failure to find the right music to express its complex lyrical sentiments.
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Sep 3, 2013Her perfectly turned sixth LP deals with identity and autonomy; it's got feminist musculature and the dirt of a working musician under its fingernails.
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Sep 3, 2013Her voice is a bear hug in the literal sense; succumbing to it is like being carjacked by Patsy Cline.
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Sep 3, 2013The closing Ragtime offers a happy ending of sorts, but this is too honest a record about unhappiness and grief to deliver a neat, redemptive conclusion.
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Aug 30, 2013It’s a tremendous listen and a wonderful demonstration of her talents nonetheless.
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Aug 30, 2013If Middle Cyclone was all about the awesome but unpredictable power of nature, Harder is about the fallibility of one's own self.
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Aug 30, 2013Sometimes her directness is harrowing: Where Did I Leave That Fire? opens with sonar bleeps and a cold ripple of piano, and finds Case all but dissociated from herself: "I wanted so badly not to be me." If this makes the album sound self-indulgent, rest assured it is far from it.
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Sep 3, 2013Much of the album was reportedly written in the throes of deep depression over the death of Case's grandmother. But she came out the other side with a beautiful, insightful record to show for it.
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Aug 30, 2013While the subsequent inconsistency may hold The Worse Things Get back from greatness, it does make it honest, and when it comes to art I’ll take honesty over consistency any day.
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Sep 5, 2013Visceral and immediate, if this album doesn’t make you feel something, at least we know it did to Ms. Case.
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Sep 3, 2013These experiments help keep the record sounding fresh, but the best moments come when Case stays within her wheelhouse and swings away.
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Sep 3, 2013The Worse Things Get isn’t about us or even for us. These 40 minutes belong to Neko Case. It’s her cleansing.
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Aug 30, 2013Not an easy listen, but a satisfying one.
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Sep 10, 2013An album of songs that seem to be about love and loss but never quite connect emotionally, almost as though Case is so wrapped up in seeming ladylike that she never really remembers to let go.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 33 out of 38
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Mixed: 3 out of 38
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Negative: 2 out of 38
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Sep 5, 2013
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Dec 24, 2013
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Sep 3, 2013