Ani DiFranco – Reprieve (2006)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 49:30 minutes | 832 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Booklet, Front Cover | © Righteous Babe Records
Every new Ani album gives listeners a reason to get excited about music all over again, and Reprieve is no exception: 13 more tastes of her signature blend of poetry, politics, and dazzling musicianship. It’s just the Little Folksinger and bassist Todd Sickafoose at her home in New Orleans this time, offering up a picture of what’s been on her mind lately during turbulent times on the personal, cultural, and global front. Reprieve finds Ani speaking her truth, singing from her heart, and playing music like her life—like all of our lives—depended on it.
Ani DiFranco has proven prolific and eclectic within a genre that might be called punk-folk. Reprieve, for instance, is her second album of 2006, and the style is much closer to singer/songwriter folk than rocking early-’90s albums like Not a Pretty Girl. One might be tempted to say the “angry girl” has become a mellow woman, more personal than political. But making a blanket statement about DiFranco and her music usually proves careless. Politics, for instance, rears its head on “Millennium Theater,” an ode to orange alerts, Halliburton, and the slow response in New Orleans. She also relates to politics in a broader sense on “Shroud,” rejecting Middle America’s values and aligning herself with bohemian culture. Lyrically, songs like “Hypnotized” and “Nicotine” relay DiFranco’s individual sensibility; her point of view never reminds the listener of other songwriters. The downside of Reprieve is that it isn’t as musically arresting as earlier albums like Out of Range, and DiFranco, on a song like “Millennium Theater,” can be rather obvious. The mellow pacing combined with non-distinct melodies also causes many of these songs to run together. Fans, however, will embrace Reprieve as a fully realized project, glad that DiFranco has continued to keep in touch.
Tracklist:
01 – Hypnotized
02 – Subconscious
03 – In The Margins
04 – Nicotine
05 – Decree
06 – 78% H2O
07 – Millennium Theater
08 – Half-Assed
09 – Reprieve
10 – A Spade
11 – Unrequited
12 – Shroud
13 – Reprise
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