The Good: Does not sound bad, Soft and melodic music, A few lyrics
The Bad: Vocally, musically and lyrically underwhelming.
The Basics: Evolve is one of Ani DiFranco's technically most musical albums, but vocally is poorly produced to obscure her lyrics in a disappointing way.
I do not, honestly, believe that my new wife is going to leave me for my musical choices or any sense that I am lacking in musical taste. This is, of course, my hope - that she not leave - but one never knows. In addition to taking a keen interest in how much time I spend writing and posting reviews, my wife seems to enjoy spending time in the same room as me, even when I am working. The thing about that is that in order to keep up any sense of musical exploration and reviewing ability in music, I have to have music playing almost constantly. As a result, my wife ends up hearing a lot of my music and if she is not into the artist, she gets quite bothered.
My partner is eagerly awaiting next month. My next Artist Of The Month is Fleetwood Mac. My wife does not know if she will like Fleetwood Mac, but our monthlong exploration of Ani DiFranco has cemented in her one thing: she is not a fan of Ani DiFranco. As we boil down to the last two albums I have in stock of DiFranco's, I am able to honestly observe that I am not a fan of Ani DiFranco's music either. Her early albums we amelodic and annoying with nasal vocals and songs that were certainly political and interesting, but hardly musical. Now that we are into her later albums, like Evolve, we are discovering an Ani DiFranco who is musical but hardly interesting at all. Evolve, an album from 2003, is musical, but does not have any distinctive tunes, hooks or melodies that make individual tracks stand out and none of the lyrics are as audacious as on any of her other albums that I have listened to. The result is an album that is remarkably easy to pass by.
With only a dozen songs coming in at 57:29, Evolve is an underperforming Ani DiFranco, but it is definitely Ani DiFranco's music and concept. DiFranco wrote all of the songs on the album and she performs all of the guitars and main vocals as well. As well, she plays the piano on two of the songs. While the album does not note in its liners any producer, DiFranco is cited as the only mixer for the album, so it is very hard to argue that this is anything but the album that she intended to release.
That said, Evolve is two things: musically rich and painfully boring. After ten replays of the album, I have no idea what the album is about. This is not because I am particularly dense or that the music is particularly complicated, but rather that DiFranco has managed to mumble and slur her vocals and prioritize the instrumentals over the vocals for the entirety of the album. In other words, she makes music and I can hear her voice, but none of the lyrics leap out at the listener.
For a sense of contrast, I ask readers to consider DiFranco's first big song, "Both Hands." When DiFranco sings the refrain about holding onto love with both hands, her vocals come forth clear, melodic and beautiful. She enunciates and articulates and it is a beautiful sound and musical presence. On Evolve, there are no tracks, no lines even like that. On her worst-sounding albums, there were moments where DiFranco would stop the music and belt out a line about whatever cause she was railing against in that particular song and it was wonderful because the listener could hear her, understand her and she had a message she wanted listeners to grasp and grapple with.
On Evolve, DiFranco is accompanied by a full band and she seems not to care so much about being understood with her vocals as she does about making a sound that flows. And on Evolve, the music does flow. The instrumentals create a background sound that is light rock and the entire album melts into a mellow, somewhat depressive mush that is unmemorable after the listener finishes with it. To wit, I began my many listens of Evolve last night and this morning when I began listening again, the experience was more or less new to me!
That said, songs like "Serpentine" with their excessive instrumentals - it is over ten minutes of music - are interesting when separated out from the other songs on the album and might actually be interesting and decent music, were it not for the fact that all of the other songs are similarly low-key and the guitars and pianos seem to muse to one another in the exact same ways on all of the tracks.
As well, Ani DiFranco seems more depressed as she sings these songs. There are no rallying cries, nothing unique or clever that she sings in a way that makes the songs memorable or even passably interesting. Instead, the listener is left with a melancholy feeling as she meanders through her slow, mid-range vocals. This is a very slow and unmemorable album.
Lyrically, Evolve is better than most of the rest of the album, but DiFranco's performance of her own lines drags the work down. As a result, songs like "Icarus" read as poems much better than they come across on the album. She is thematically and poetically audacious in her lines "Breathe like it's rolling like a cold front / Thunder is thundering and lightening in tow / And your tiny little life gets / Even smaller / As you heed the heaven's mighty show / And I don't mean heaven / Like god-like / The animal in me knows very well / Nature is our teacher, our leader, and our lover / And god is just another story that we tell" ("Icarus"), but she does not present the lines in music form in a way that indicates she has the emotional muscle to back up her assertive declarations or opinions. The result is she sounds like she is lacking in confidence on the album.
But when read, the lyrics on Evolve actually seem to have something to say. It is a shame that she mumbles through phrases like "So we took down all the pictures / And then we took down all the walls / Packed up our expectations / Piled them in the hall / Yeah we bagged our future / Kicked it to the curb / And then we stood there unencumbered / And we stood there undeterred / 'Cause we were done clinging / To the things we were afraid to lose" ("In The Way"). Clearly DiFranco still has something to say and lyically, "In The Way" is an amazing song that deserves to be expressed, heard and comprehended. DiFranco still has some serious abilities as a musical storyteller. But the track lacks such auditory distinction that it could honestly be playing right now and I would not know it. (As it is, the disc just began replaying from the beginning.)
But even lyrically, the album is not DiFranco's most consistent. "Here For Now" is plagued by predictable and boring rhymes like ". . .And the moment when your heart jumps in all that's happening / It's like the first time you felt that shock / Yes, your heart jumps in all that's happening / And I was right behind the door when you knocked." DiFranco apparently both paved the way for Morissette and Lavigne with rhyming the same word with itself, but when she mumbles through it, she does not get a number one song.
All in all, Evolve is terribly boring pop-rock music and were it not for the general technical merits of it, there is no way it would be rated this high even.
The best track is "Serpentine," the low point is the utterly unmemorable "Shrug."
For other Ani DiFranco works, please check out my reviews of:
Ani DiFranco
Not So Soft
Imperfectly
Like I Said (Songs 1990-91)
Out Of Range
Not A Pretty Girl
Living In Clip
Little Plastic Castle
Revelling / Reckoning
Reprieve
5/10
For other music reviews, please visit my Music Review Index Page!
© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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