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TO THE TEETH
Ani DiFranco
This is the third album Ani DiFranco has released this year and, amazingly, there are no signs that this singular talent has stretched herself too thin. On the contrary, a surplus of spleen-venting emotion and genre-blurring notions regularly spills over the edges of these 13 songs. The disc-opening title track is a vitriolic attack at the American gun lobby from a post-Columbine perspective; it starts as a straight acoustic folk number but gradually builds into a gorgeous, graceful waltz with oom-pah-pah tuba and an unfettered, jazzy trumpet solo. She has plenty to say (on everything from ex-boyfriends to murdering abortion doctors) and many ways of saying it. Don't file To The Teeth under folk until you've properly investigated Going Once and Back Back Back, two sleek jazz-funk numbers (the latter a fine showcase for saxophonist Maceo Parker, a longtime James Brown sideman); or Wish I May, carried along on a burbling, dub-like bass until it ends expectedly with angelic choral singing; or Swing, a stab at rap that, admittedly, isn't entirely successful. As always, DiFranco can be eclectic for eclectism's sake, to the detriment of her songs, but music with a surfeit of ideas and imagination is always preferable to the alternative.
Track Listing
1.To The Teeth
02.Soft Shoulder
03.Wish I May
04.Freakshow
05.Going Once
06.Hello Birmingham
07.Back Back Back
08.Swing
09.Carry You Around
10.Cloud Blood
11.The Arrivals Gate
12.Providence
13.I Know This Bar
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