In two weeks La Reine de Reverbe, Neko Case, will release her first album in too long, The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You.  This is her sixth album and, upon first listen, possibly her most personal and divergent outing yet.

The album was produced by Case and recorded in Tuscon, Portland, Los Angeles and Brooklyn with, amongst others, producer Tucker Martine.  Girl gets around.  Case is backed by various colleagues, including guitarist Paul Rigby, bassist Tom V. Ray, vocalist Kelly Hogan and multi-instrumentalist Jon Rauhouse, along with M. Ward, Steve Turner, the musical-gigantor Howe Gelb, and members of The New Pornographers, My Morning Jacket, Calexico, Los Lobos and Visqueen.  That’s a litany of musical wealth, which Case employs in full on several tracks.  But you can also hear Case going her own way, invoking new sounds and effects along the way and even eschewing all instrumental accompaniment for the devastating Near Midnight, Honolulu, and almost all instrumentation on the similarly evocative Afraid (a Nico cover).

Case has always rended and patched hearts superbly well with her songs, and with its new sounds and subjects, this new album might be her finest collection yet.  Check it out over at NPR HERE.