AV Club:
In the epic battle between Man and Nature, Neko Case’s allegiance is clear. On her 2004 live album, The Tigers Have Spoken, she sings on the title track about a captured tiger: “They shot the tiger on his chain / in the field behind the cages / he walked in circles ’til he was crazy / and he lived that way forever.” On 2006’s Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, Case tries to save a bird from certain death in “Maybe Sparrow.” The empathy continues on the new Middle Cyclone, both for man-eaters on “People Got A Lot Of Nerve”—“You know they call them ‘killer’ whales / but you seemed surprised when it pinned you down to the bottom of the tank”—and nature in general on “This Tornado Loves You.” It all goes to show that Case is fascinated by what can’t be tamed, which her own rootless life has undoubtedly influenced.