I'm not the right person to write an Ani DiFranco CD review.
Every eight months or so, she puts out an album, and it just humbles me. She says all the things that are rumbling around in the back of my brain trying to get out. But while I've been toiling under pages of text, she says it in three lines, in an interesting melody and in rhyme. Knuckle Down isn't any different.
It's been fun growing up with DiFranco. Her 17th full-length album, Knuckle Down presents the latest version of her. She's older, more comfortable with her voice, less restricted in her verse. In short, she's returned to her natural state.
The sounds she presents have the mark of maturity. Riffs get room to breathe. Tambours fully gel. Concepts have the space they need to reach their potential. Nothing comes across forced or unnatural.
It's quite a trick to make it sound like you were born with an acoustic guitar around your neck, like you came out of the womb with your first song on your lips.
So I'm a fan.
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But I listen to tons of music. I think about music all day long. And only truly great songs smack you over the head, transcend your criteria, give you goose bumps or leave you breathless. If I had a top-10 list, three of the songs on it would probably be DiFranco's.
And none of them would come off of Knuckle Down. But that certainly doesn't mean she's missed her mark.
The album opens with trademark DiFranco guitar, grabbing the listener with her particular brand of fast-paced finger picking. The metaphors change topic a bit too quickly on this opening number, but the notion of life not being quite what you expected clearly drives the song.
Sweet little lines pop out. "That star-struck girl is already someone I miss," DiFranco sings.
The best incarnation of DiFranco's voice in muscular mode is on "Seeing Eye Dog." What's nice about Knuckle Down is the colors in her voice are not as distinct from one another as they used to be. There's a lot more middle ground in what she's doing, which creates fresh combinations of sound and emotion and broadens the complexity of what she portrays.
And in some ways, her self-portrait is unchanging. She's still a lonely insomniac, still lovelorn, still thinking about politics. But she's grown up.
Knuckle Down
Ani DiFranco
Grade: A
