New Difranco album shows maturity

With its instrumental creativity and more mature lyrics, Ani Difranco's new album is certainly worthy of its name, Evolve. The album, with its mix of punk-folk songs with jazz and Latin beats and live-feel, displays Difranco's versatility as a singer, songwriter and producer.

The musical anger Difranco displayed in her career is replaced in Evolve with more introspective lyrics. While many of her first songs were about feeling overpowered by men, the songs on Evolve that tackle love speak of men and women as equal individuals, neither overpowering the other -- though Difranco does retain some cynicism about love.

The title track "Evolve" is by the far the best on the album in terms of lyrics. Difranco discusses the struggle of people -- first a girl, then herself -- to improve themselves in a society with so many flaws. At the end of the song, she seems to have found peace with her identity as she sings "so I walk like I'm on a mission/cuz that's the way I groove/I got more and more to do/I got less and less to prove/it took me too long to realize/that I don't take good pictures/cuz I have the kind of beauty/that moves."

The one fault of the song is that it is not so much a song as poetry sung to a twangy guitar line and, at points, the words seem rushed to catch up with the beat. While this makes it hard to hum Difranco's songs after you have listened to the album, this has the effect of showing the listener that words are the important element in her songs. The variety of songs and musical backgrounds on Evolve suggest that Difranco is indeed capable of making the music fit but chose not to for artistic reasons.

Though Difranco may be less angry about relationships, she continues to incorporate strong political views and social commentary into her songs. "Serpentine," a ten-minute poem set to guitar fingerpicking, is a commentary on current events and political power in America. Difranco refers to America as a "corporate plantation" where the "CEOs are shredding files" and "the music industry is pimping girl power." There is also a subtle reference to Sept. 11 in the lines "cuz the Empire State Building/is the tallest in New York."

"Serpentine" critiques the materialism of American society and paints Americans as slaves who follow politicians and business leaders without stopping to question why. Difranco sings "and behold/those that try to expose the reality/who really try to realize democracy/are shot with rubber bullets and gassed off the streets/while the global power brokers are kept clean and discreet/behind a wall."

The theme of insecurity also runs through many of Difranco's songs -- though unlike her previous works, it is the lover and not the narrator in the songs who is insecure. The song "Here for now" is the prime example of this theme and is one of the best songs on the album for both its lyrics and beat.

The song's fast beat and accompaniments by horns give it a Latin flavor -- and reveal how Difranco's music truly has evolved. Much of her work has been solo or acoustic, and her early albums that do involve a back-up band don't do anything special with it. But in the songs on Evolve, the backup band of Julie Wolf (keyboards), Hans Teuber (flute and reeds), Jason Mercer (bass), Daren Hahn (drums) and Todd Horton, Ravi Best and Shane Endsley (brass section) shines through. Horn solos add nicely to "In the way," and the musical harmony to "O My My" is well-crafted to feature each member of the band without overwhelming the voice line.

The variety of subjects tackled in the songs on Evolve along with a mix of songs with rhythm and poems set to music make the album appealing to both old school Ani fans and first time listeners. Listeners be warned, however: it takes a few times through the album for the subtleties that make Difranco's music beautiful to become apparent. The first time through, it sounds like typical Difranco, and you have to listen a few times to appreciate the intricacies of the music.

Evolve is nothing revolutionary, but it is Difranco's most advanced album from an instrumental standpoint, and both the music and lyrics demonstrate her versatility as an artist. It's a great album to write take-home midterms to, and the lyrics provide plenty of away message fodder.

If none of the songs on Evolve appeal to you or you're just a cheesy Difranco fan, you can figure out which song you are by visiting www.el3vator.com/!!/anidifranco.html