Red Letter Year

by

Ani DiFranco

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I was always crazy about Ani's solo work, going back to the early 90's, but I have always regretted her decision to try to develop a full band -- the amazing qualities of her musicianship and songs never translated to an upright bass, terrible horns, and marginal rotating bandmates. However, the new album achieves some awesome heights, particularly the tracks 'Red Letter Year', 'Alla This', and 'Smiling Underneath'. Her signature percussive guitar attack is all but gone, but I think she finally may have found a sound with her band. The drums are extraordinary throughout, and some very interesting effects/sounds pepper many of the songs. However, even more so than the improvements in the band, Ani's voice has reached an incredible maturity. In many songs, there's a simple (yet very strong) sweetness to it, and very seldom do you hear the overly-affected vocal tremolo that has marred her singing style on the last few albums. If you take away the inexplicably horrible final track (which sounds like a bunch of drunk high school band castoffs trying very unsuccessfully to sound "fun"), this album is truly a treat. Highly recommended, especially for those who may have been avoiding her recent albums due to the reduction of the visceral results of her and her acoustic guitar. Great job Ani!!

I've been a die-hard Ani fan for 12 years. I buy each album she puts out without question, and will probably consider to do so, hoping she will shock and awe me as she once did in the days of Dilate and Little Plastic Castles.

Red Letter Year seems to be at the bottom of a downhill slide that started when she began playing with the voice-synthesizer and instrumentals. So much of Red Letter Year has been so overly-synthesized that you can barely hear her voice, much less make out what she's saying. Sure, some of it rings through, and you get those wonderfully Ani lyrics, but, despite much searching, I can hardly find anything here that reminds me of why I love her.

Normally, I find one or two (or three or four) songs per album that I replay incessently for weeks and months on end. There's nothing here that made me want to listen to the CD more than once. I am saddened by it, but hope that Ani will make a comeback with something more relevent, something more "ani", for her old, diehard fans.