Amazing, innovative, complex, genius — just a few of the adjectives I would use to describe Ani Difranco and the newest addition to her vast collection of albums.
With Reveling: Reckoning she's done it again, giving her fans something to really listen to. This is one of the most thought-provoking albums I have ever heard, listing it in my top ten.
The double disc studio production is still the same Difranco — fun, sarcastic and undeniably talented — but she has turned this set into something different.
It's still what every loyal Difranco fan yearns for, but is a maturer album, compiling everything this complicated woman thinks about into a masterpiece.
Any long-time Difranco fan will see these changes as just another element of continually increasing growth of her music and career — because she keeps evolving and, in my opinion, improving.
Difranco possibly has mastered her career with knowledge that only an artist of her years and experience could boast.
Difranco's newest album has birthed a mellower voice and tone, but it still screams the blunt but ever-graceful presence she exhales with every deeply thought-out lyric.
By far my favorite song out of the total 29 is the lead track, "Your Next Bold Move," which is on my favorite disc, Reckoning.
It is a fabulous song to start off with, and with Difranco working the acoustic guitar, bass, tongue drum and her impressive voice, it has a deep-reaching melody that draws in the listener.
She played this song at her concert in Pittsburgh on April 4 and blew the audience away, knocking them silent.
"So What," track four on Reckoning, is another of my favorites. The lyrics are funny and the clarinet and trumpet add flavor to Difranco's slow-crooning voice. With lyrics that truly hit home, it's a great song to sit back and be angry with someone. I did.
The two discs have an almost completely opposite sound between them: Reckoning a more soft lulling type of sound, and Reveling a more funk type of beat.
I'm not completely happy with "Grey," on Reckoning, basically because it's well, grey. Although this song is somewhat depressing, it is also intriguing. This is a perfect example of how Difranco is digging into her brain to give us some of her deep thoughts.
"What How When Where (Why Who)," on Reveling, is an interesting song with an interesting beat. Difranco sings it with a very quick-witted tongue. She also sang this song in concert.
A running theme in both these albums is politics, which is very evident in "Subdivision," on Reckoning. Difranco likes to pick apart America, but in a way that is enlightening and helps raise awareness of problems.
Overall, this album generates enough energy to light up an entire city. Go out and buy this compact disc. It is essential to any music lover's collection.
