Ani DiFranco
Issue #29
Reprieve (Righteous Babe)
By Elizabeth Rhodes
Published: September 1st, 2006 | 12:00am
Word on the street was that Ani DiFranco’s latest would be an ultra-political rant inspired by the sounds and flooding of New Orleans — picture the brass band of “Deep Dish” meeting the furious lyrics of “Self-Evident.” Turns out that’s just some journalist’s good storyline.
Recorded in the Crescent City and Buffalo, New York, Reprieve is a mature, subtle album where personal and political heartbreak intertwine and the tone is of the relaxed Louisiana bayou, not the wild Mardi Gras night. DiFranco seems to have read some situationist literature, frequently alluding to the “spectacle” that dominates modernity and the need for its transcendence. “Hypnotized” is the first of many pensive, melancholy love songs on the album with underlying social commentary. It begins with a relaxed, acoustic bass line played by Todd Sickafoose, the album’s only additional performer.
The anticipated good and not-as-good qualities of DiFranco’s signature feminist alt-folk endure. Her intricate, percussive guitar work survived tendonitis and her lyrics remain tremendous. Polyrhythm and shifting meter are essential to her quirky sound but disrupt the flow of “In the Margins.” Melody is still fighting for equal footing with text and loses the battle in the Republican regime–bashing “Millennium Theater.”
Now armed with a massive body of work, it’s unlikely that Reprieve will signal a great turning point in DiFranco’s career. “I ain’t in the best shape that I’ve ever been in, but I know where I’m going and it ain’t where I’ve been,” she sings on “Subconscious.” Wherever the “little folksinger” goes, her legion of loyal fans is bound to follow.
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