Review: Ani DiFranco - Allergic to Water
By Garrett Bower, Staff Writer
[Righteous Babe; 2014]
Rating: 4/10
Key Tracks: “Dithering” “Happy All the Time”
At this stage in Ani DiFranco’s career, she is practically a natural force, unbending and unrelenting. With a successful independent record label she started at age 18, an innumerable amount of tour dates, poetry books and now her 19th studio album Allergic to Water, DiFranco seems to be as constant as the tides. The real question is not the measure of DiFranco’s sweeping career but instead what punch she can still pack, be it the crashing waves upon the shore or more of an idle babble of the backyard creek.
Allergic to Water opens simply enough with some plucky acoustic strings and vibrant blue chords. The drums cut in and give “Dithering” some southern blues jaunt. DiFranco comes in smooth and cool as she sings of the overwhelming mess that is living in the Information Age of the present.
“I got a database / Behind my face / Of dithering information,” sighs DiFranco. The song has a whole lot to say about the frustration of all consuming modernity, but DiFranco fails to say it with any real conviction. The song fades out with a fitting electronic warble, perhaps with DiFranco succumbing to the techloop.
Next up is “See see see see,” a heavily Americana-influenced ditty with about as much crunch as a seven-month-old saltine. There’s a backing track with that early 2000s easy listening sound of a gramophone at the bottom of the sea, and it sounds so fucking bad I have to grit my teeth when I hear it (sorry). DiFranco sings of a well-worn love and the song serves as a sweet--if boring--testament to the feelings DiFranco still has.
After that bland misadventure is one of the fresher tracks, “Woe Be Gone,” which is a track with a simple feel of strings, and plucky guitar and a vast lyrical scope, as DiFranco tackles world conflict and the nature of humankind’s self-destruction.
While that might sound like a drag, it seems DiFranco is more in her element when commentating on the shape of the world around her, offering some beautifully worded insight. The easy listening backing vocal is still present, but it sounds more like a shitty speakerphone, so now it’s okay.
Another simple gem is found later in the album with “Happy All the Time,” offering sparse instrumentation and allowing DiFranco’s vocal work to really shine, with her voice sounding its most affecting on this song out of the whole album. The cool verses are exchanged for a lovely simple ode to positivity in struggle, accented by a few rasps and runs of DiFranco’s voice.
Overall, Allergic to Water is an interesting album from an artist that still has plenty to say and the drive to do it. Unfortunately, awkward and somewhat bland execution diminish the messages DiFranco is trying to convey, leaving the album a forgettable listen that’s likely to find its way to the bottom of most bins.
