A few weeks ago, I spent all day waiting for the Houston postal service to deliver my copy of Red Letter Year from an office in Charlottesville, a package mailed overnight because the only reliable thing about the mail here is its inability to arrive on time. And the record came not a day too soon, as if it anticipated the havoc Hurricane Ike would wreak on the city, the mail, and my plans to drive to Austin to see Difranco perform 10 days before her 20th album hit the stores.
The record promises to be a lot, up front: Difranco’s first studio album since 2006, a celebration of two decades folking with us, a red letter year. And with the birth of her daughter, the opening of her own venue, Babeville, and the release of a retrospective compilation, Canon, a lot has happened to the DIY gal in the last two years. Talkin’ rugrats and records, Difranco clearly has production on the brain.
And so, as it would happen, does Red Letter Year. Produced by both Difranco and her baby’s daddy, Mike Napolitano, the record begins with a horn-backed tenor guitar line that quickly disappears into a thick mix of keyboard, strings, and doubled vocals that echo dramatically at the end of each verse. “The goddesses sent word that this would be a red letter year./ They didn’t mention how much shit was gonna change around here,” two Difrancos chorus, and change it did. The result? A string of songs that, more often than not, sound heavy instead of layered, muddy instead of nuanced, and bury Ani’s trademark percussive finger picking and vocal flexibility.
Would it be unnecessarily cruel to take the obvious pot shot and suggest that Ani and Napolitano stick to makin’ babies? Probably.
Especially because the album redeems itself in fits and spurts. “Alla This” and “Landing Gear,” audience favorites since Difranco began playing them live over a year ago, weather the weight of the mix with success, and are lyrically interesting enough to sustain a repeat listen. “Smiling Underneath” begins brilliantly, with grit and groove that could belong to Tom Waits himself. Even the entirely horn-driven “Red Letter Year Reprise,” a six-minute, New Orleans-style jam on the same four chords, is vibrant and fun. But the road to Hell is paved with overproduction, and most of the time this album is on the fast track, bumped off course every now and then when the guitar peeks through.
As I write this, Houston continues to clear debris from its streets and the postal service continues to bring me my mail weeks behind schedule, and I’m still disappointed that I can’t make it to Difranco’s show because I know she’s a killer performer. There’s something resilient and meaningful beneath all that clutter, and I’ll keep looking for it, even if, this time, the record just didn’t deliver.