Ani's new album, 'Red Letter Year'
...has leaked and is not the weak, happy, sappy mess of a record that John John and I feared it would be.
Favourites so far are 'Smiling Underneath' & 'Red Letter Year'; both are really thrilling, with big Ani-voice bits and anthemic rushes of brass. At first, I was not sure about the album version of 'Alla This', but it's grown on me. The drama of the arrangement is really cool and over-the-top :) 'Present/Infant' is still a cute song, but I prefer it in its more indigenous live performance.
The production on this record is fantastic; it's the most sonically varied and exciting record since 'To The Teeth'. It's definitely not as lyrically sophisticated as 'Reprieve' or 'Educated Guess' and the individual songs are much weaker than 'Knuckledown'. In fact it's probably her weakest record since 'Evolve', but hell, we thought it was going to be dire, so happy days.
Favourites so far are 'Smiling Underneath' & 'Red Letter Year'; both are really thrilling, with big Ani-voice bits and anthemic rushes of brass. At first, I was not sure about the album version of 'Alla This', but it's grown on me. The drama of the arrangement is really cool and over-the-top :) 'Present/Infant' is still a cute song, but I prefer it in its more indigenous live performance.
The production on this record is fantastic; it's the most sonically varied and exciting record since 'To The Teeth'. It's definitely not as lyrically sophisticated as 'Reprieve' or 'Educated Guess' and the individual songs are much weaker than 'Knuckledown'. In fact it's probably her weakest record since 'Evolve', but hell, we thought it was going to be dire, so happy days.