Ani DiFranco: Evolve

Reviewed by GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * )

Someone once said Mike Leigh movies were like buses - it didn't matter if you missed one, there'd be another along soon. The same might be said of DiFranco albums. By my count she's released about 20 albums in a little over half as many years, some of them double discs. You can do that if you have your own label.

Here, the woman who recently opened for Bob Dylan doesn't break any new ground - although given she's explored spoken word, a cappella, folk, funk, pop, swing and most other styles in her musically promiscuous past that's perhaps not saying much.

Even so, this stalks familiar emotional territory and so interest alights on the arrangements and embellishments.

There's a horn section on the bouncy Slide, some New Orleans funk underscores the finger-popping In The Way, there's a Latin shuffle to Here For Now, and her strong finger-picking is to the fore on the 10-minute politicised Serpentine ("Uncle Sam is riggin' cock fights in the Promised Land"). Jazzy colourings are everywhere, from her gymnastic vocals to the keyboards and saxophones.

DiFranco is never less than a powerful performer but her vocal ticks, inflections, leaps or stutters here can't disguise the wordy polemics (the taxonomically challenging Serpentine leaps from global politics to swipes at the music industry and some personal stuff) or overwrought, dense lyrics.

DiFranco always offers a challenge - here she hardly offers memorable hooks if that's what you're looking for - but this time you might want to wait for No 21. It'll be along soon.

(Righteous Babe/Shock)