:: Ani DiFranco - Knuckle Down

Ani DiFranco

I suppose the generic way to start any review of Ms. Difranco is to skite about her 17 or so albums, her fiercely independent record label and (of course) her ball breaking music. Well, unfortunately I’m not going that way today. Particularly after listening to her latest release, which surprisingly goes against the feminist stereotype and doesn’t even gloat about her fight against the ‘corporate carrot’. In fact, this album is kind of sad…and introspective…and pretty intimate. This tough gal has lost her dad in the last year, and is still suffering through a divorce she’s been writing songs about for the last four or five years – and this is what the album is about. For anyone who picked up her last album Educated Guess, a solo effort on which she played all instruments and produced herself, Knuckle Down might seem like easy listening. Although it had its moments, Educated Guess may have alienated some fans. You could kinda imagine Ani curled up in a ball somewhere, rocking back and forth. So this time around, although the themes are heavy, she has fellow songwriter Joe Henry co-producing and a bevy of musicians who help lighten the vibe a little. These include her ex keys player Julie Wolf and Andrew Bird, who Ani has signed to her label Righteous Babe Records. Highlights of the album include Studying Stones, which is the closest thing to a commercial Ani song I’ve ever come across, the bluesy Seeing Eye Dog and the final track, Recoil, which delves right into her issues with her Dad and ex-husband. Ani had been playing quite a few of the tracks off Knuckle Down on her recent solo tours so avid fans will hear the tunes go from solo Ani to the fleshed out, string-focused arrangements she’s come to love in recent years. This is definitely a personal album, and with talk of the next album being primarily political, it seems that after 17 albums, this lady still has a lot to say.