Ani DiFranco (1.5 stars)
Knuckle Down
Something about Ani DiFranco is so all-about-Ani that it's only because musician Joe Henry pitches in on this CD that it's bearable to anyone but the die-hard fans of DiFranco's micro-examination of her own psyche.
At its worst, Knuckle Down is coffeehouse music the way Muzak is Muzak—it's just a given that you'll have a pensive girl saying/singing/saying lines like, "Your consonants were buzzing around your head like flies / your true colors were showing / and your true shape and your size" and "Dripping with the sweat of irony" and "I want to take a long cool drink from your bucket / to every thought I could think now, I say f--k it," punctuated by pregnant guitar plucks and purposefully out-of-sync and meaningful cracks of voice.
At its best, there are some mildly interesting variations of music, or at least there are indeed variations, such as in "Parameters," a spoken-word account of a strange man in her house. Unfortunately, it purports to be more interesting than it is.
She's made more than 15 CDs in the last 15 years, surely many beloved—wait, wait, I just heard the lines "you've got to rendezvous with whoever you are" and I can't finish this review.
Marianne Faithfull (4 stars)
Before the Poison
Though an icon of the '60s, Marianne Faithfull didn't find her path until her 1979 masterpiece, Broken English, that surveyed a life as the last drugged-out, drunken slut at the party. Not only was she decimated, she was pissed off, too, and her voice dropped about an octave and developed a croak worthy of the harpy she had become.
Her work since then has never been as inspired, but it's always been interesting. The result has left fans wondering if anything as essential as Broken English will ever come from her again.
Before the Poison is not Broken English II, but it matches that sense of being a watershed moment. Aided by Nick Cave and P.J. Harvey, the CD is almost uplifting in its embrace of suffering and sorrow.
Standout tracks like "The Mystery of Love" and "City of Quartz" mix sparse yet pulsing rock arrangements with Faithfull's damaged growl to bookend a work that feels unified and almost dramatic. There is a sense that the sun might just still poke through once more before the clouds close over it—not that Faithfull is counting on that happening.