Ani DiFranco: Up Up Up Up Up Up : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Ani DiFranco makes outspoken, postmodern folk that suits her talents andforgives her weaknesses. Her lovely, elastic voice can swing from toffee toburlap within a phrase, and her feel for words is masterful-she pins downboth grim and romantic truths with the same accuracy, and the result is alwaysunexpected and vivid. But as music, DiFranco's work is slack and overly busyat the same time. Too many tracks on her twelfth solo album, Up Up Up Up UpUp, pointlessly process her vocals ("Jukebox,""Trickle Down") so that thisfierce, poetic singer sounds distant, unengaged and lost amid the attention-getting grindings of Wurlitzer and organ. When she's tuneful, the arrangementssoar-especially on the title song's serene march, the Cajun furbelows of"Angel Food" and the funky-soul rave-up of "Hat Shaped Hat." DiFranco'sagitprop is still heavy-handed; on " 'Tis of Thee" she wrings her hands overracial injustice. She's more wordsmith than thinker, more singer than musician-- but never more commanding than when she's shaping images like a sculptorand testifying in a freaked-out quaver. (RS 805)

ARION BERGER