Neko Case gets loud, Nine Inch Nails quiet down

Neko Case roars on her new album, “The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You.”

She roars like a lion, like a tornado, like a brute on “Man,” booming: “I'm a man ... I'm not the runt of the litter.”

Then she tucks a pretty bridge (is that glockenspiel I hear?) into the macho rock anthem.

Case's latest masterpiece vacillates, sometimes from song to song, sometimes from moment to moment, between tough and tender, whole and wounded. She follows “Man” by singing, “I was surprised when you called me a lady,” like a coquettish country queen on “I'm From Nowhere.”

The artistic and emotional swings succeed because Case writes taut songs and powers them with her unique voice. Her thin-but-steady timbre unfolds murder ballads, lamentations on her role as an artist and a cappella tales of unloved children. Nobody sings like Case. Nobody writes like Case. She proves it a dozen times on “The Worse Things Get.”

It takes a long time to make a great record with computers. I'm not insisting Trent Reznor used only computers to construct Nine

Inch Nails' first album in five years, “Hesitation Marks.” The album features the guitar work of Lindsey Buckingham and Adrian Belew and contributions from session aces. But Reznor delivers his best punches through ones and zeros.

Whatever you call the music — electronica, industrial, post-ambient — the blips and bleeps and clicks and hisses of “Hesitation Marks” show a new side of Reznor. The album retains NiN's dystopian creepiness while inverting the artist's musical template. The choruses you expect to explode with volume often descend into tranquil tones. Reznor draws energy from slowing things down instead of speeding up.

The biggest shift comes with Reznor's first pop song: “Everything.” OK, it's a pop song with heavy mechanical sections, but it has a hook like a New Order gem. Those who thought the auteur had finished evolving his bestknown brand should listen to this.