Ani Difranco Revelling: Reckoning Lyrics

As she has become both indie icon and industry force, Ani DiFranco has grown more unpredictable, savvy, and restless with every release. On this sumptuously packaged double set, DiFranco often pours her brutally personal and political images into summery, horn-based jazz arrangements--Maceo Parker even takes one gorgeously funky sax solo--and yet somehow still keeps the focus on her own minimalist guitar and vulnerable, emotionally strung-out voice. Her jittery, jazzy phrasing deconstructs the pleasure and poison of her lyrics, so that even vicious lines like "our culture is just a roughneck / teenage jerk / with a bottle of pills / and a bottle of booze" resonate beyond easy condemnation. This is a dark, brooding, but ultimately cathartic work of confessional art. On nearly every track, DiFranco pursues the kind of defenseless honesty and personal vision that few other performers today would dare. --Roy Kasten