- Rock
- 2008
- Buy the CD
Reviewed by Lee Zimmerman
With such a prodigious output, one might wonder what else she could add to her ongoing opining. However, in recent years, DiFranco seems to have mellowed somewhat, thanks to the calming influences of a steady mate and a new baby born in early ’07. Consequently, Red Letter Year took two years to craft, an eternity compared to the rapid-fire release schedule of her previous work. It also provides something of a new beginning, one that reflects a less edgy, less tempestuous attitude. Opening the album with the slow meandering drift of the title track, she offers first hints of a new, unhurried approach. “It’s just that we weren’t swollen with unfocused dread / We had visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads,” she sings somewhat contentedly. “Present/Infant” follows suit, conveying an air of ease with present circumstance, as evidenced in her declaration, “I’ve got myself a new mantra / It says: don’t forget to have a good time!” Elsewhere, her melodies weave a seductive spell – in the mellow drift of “Star Matter,” the ethereal, atmospheric “The Atom,” the quiet, lilting “Way Tight” and the sensual sway of “Good Luck” in particular. She even dares to dabble in some frivolous fanfare, purveyed in the ragtime instrumental “Red Letter Year Reprise,” the album’s feel-good send-off.
Still, a less irascible DiFranco doesn’t mean she’s any less incorrigible. “Alla This” and “Smiling Underneath” coast above a tangle of instrumental undertow, while “Round a Pole” and “Emancipated Minor” find her stretching her boundaries with fluid, freewheeling tempos which tug at the peripheries. And being that this is an election year, political commentary also enters the fray. Still, lacking her contentious attitude, DiFranco has recast herself as an artist who’s daring, yet no longer defiant, one whose work invites investigation without recrimination. If Red Letter Year isn’t her best album to date, it’s certainly her most approachable.
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