Ani DiFranco – Dilate May 21, 1996
	1. Untouchable Face 2. Outta Me, Onto You 3. Superhero 4. Dilate 5. Amazing Grace 6. Napoleon 7. Shameless 8. Done Wrong 9. Going Down 10. Adam and Eve 11. Joyful Girl

Ani DiFranco is one of those singer-songwriters I’ve always wanted to listen to since I’ve had a few of her albums sitting around my albums, but never really got an opportunity to do so. I only remembered “Untouchable Face” for obvious reasons, but I never went further because I always ended up listening to it on speakers, which isn’t a good idea around parentals. When I actually got through it, I was surprised as to how much I actually liked this album. Yes, I am aware that I am more than ten years behind on this album (since it was released in 1996).

DiFranco is an ridiculously angry person throughout this album and Untouchable Face sets the tone of this album perfectly with this soft piece, which she sings with a rather soft voice. The melody is actually quite nice, and there’s plenty of nice ethereal sounds happening throughout this album. Of course, none of us expect the chorus unless one has actually listened to the album prior to this. There’s plenty of F-bomb throwing throughout the chorus — think every other line. And yet the song still remains calm and quite pretty. It never fails to set the tone for the rest of the album as an emotional, unhappy album.

We leave the nice-sounding anger of the first track to a grittier sound for this next track, Outta Me, Onto You, which begins with DiFranco screaming “No” multiple times. I adore the guitar line she uses throughout this song; it is ridiculously addictive, although very repetitive. She does a good job keeping the guitar interesting despite its repetitive nature. Her vocal performance is really convincing and she sings with a lot of ferocity — the emotional, raw vocals combined with the addictive guitar line really work well together on this track.

My personal favourite, Superhero, starts off with some gorgeous guitar line mixed with DiFranco softer tones at the beginning. It has a bit of a mysterious tone to it at the beginning, and the song crescendos gradually to the more powerful chorus. DiFranco handles herself perfectly as the chorus isn’t overwhelmingly loud, but at the same time, it’s memorable and powerful. This is a much softer song in comparison to “Outta Me, Onto You”, but it’s equally as emotionally charged. I love her variations in dynamics in how she performs the lyrics throughout the track.

Dilate takes a little getting used to. Unlike the last few tracks, it has a bit less of a flowing nature in its composition and doesn’t naturally come together as well. DiFranco performs as if she can barely utter a sound in this track at the beginning. The instrumentation is mostly guitar playing softly, while occasionally having two strong strums at times. It works a bit better when DiFranco starts to sing a with more support and the accompaniment becomes more fleshed out with a bit more layering in sound; however, the crescendo into section this is quite nice. I’m still not overly fond of this track, personally; however, I can appreciate the accompaniment. As usual, though, DiFranco’s singing is emotionally charged, and she performs well throughout.

DiFranco’s cover of Amazing Grace is probably one of the weakest tracks on this album. I appreciate her interesting take on it and it surely sounds interestingly different from many of the Amazing Grace covers I’ve heard in the past. It’s definitely quite an interesting arrangement — it’s much more beat orientated and it’s quite nicely composed. However, this is probably one of the longest overwrought versions I have every heard. She pauses every few seconds in between the lyrics, so basically it goes on forever. It’s seven minutes, meaning it’s the longest track on the album. Yes, DiFranco sings nicely throughout but it’s almost soulless because of all the pauses. The speaking from whoever is also one of the unnecessary things in the track. This doesn’t sound like a song of redemption; it’s now a song full of hesitation and is only interesting for the first minute.

Electric guitar makes its appearance in the opening for Napolean. DiFranco takes a more hesitant approach to the opening of this track as her singing is soft and the guitar line is rather disjointed. The playing and singing becomes slightly smoother when she reaches the second verse. Again, DiFranco makes good use of dynamics throughout this track with the gradual crescendo in the track, especially in her vocals, where she gradually gets back to her grittier rock voice (see “Outta Me, Onto You”) and switches back to her more melodic sound. The arrangement of this song is rather minimal with mostly the electric guitar and drums being the center of attention in the track. The song seems to drag on after awhile, but the melody is enjoyable.

I’ve never been so confused when a song starts off with incoherent, but rhythmic screaming. Seriously. That aside, Shameless is absolutely addictive. There are no words that better describe this track. Even the little pause at the beginning at the utterance of frustration at the beginning adds to the track for some reason I do not understand. Again, with the repetitive but addictive guitar and a constant drum beat. DiFranco does her edgier voice at the beginning, and quickly smoothes out the song with a very melody chorus before going back to the addictive verses. This track, and “Outta Me, Onto You” are in competition for the most addictive track on this album.

I don’t actually remember much of the tracks beyond this point — they’re not as immediately memorable as the other tracks on the album, but they’re still good tracks. Done Wrong is a more sombre track, which might explain the lack of memorability on a passive listen. The melody doesn’t stand out much in the verse as it’s mostly hidden underneath the acoustic guitar lines; however the chorus stands-out much more as DiFranco starts to sing out more, and her display of emotion is much more evident. It’s not the most interesting track on the album, especially when one listens to the verse, but the chorus is quite powerful by itself.

Going Down is another track that doesn’t stand out to me as much, but I really do like its focus on the bass line from the beginning. The “vocal” (it’s actually speaking) doesn’t start until a minute in, so you know you’re in for a track that’s a bit stretched out for its own good. It continues the sombre sound of the previous track, and has some interesting instrumentations going on with some of the percussion. However, as a track by itself, it probably won’t appeal to a lot of people and surely won’t be memorable to a lot of people because it doesn’t have much of a melody. For me, I lost interest about halfway through the song. The track simply doesn’t have much emotional appeal to it’s although vaguely interesting in arrangement.

The last two soft tracks were mostly a miss for me. Adam and Eve appeals to be a bit more, although DiFranco is probably the only thing that vaguely interests me at the beginning since after the past few songs, the acoustic guitar doesn’t seem like much of a change. However, DiFranco’s voice is really what saves this track, simply because she still instils a emotion onto the track, especially when the chorus kicks in. It’s not until then that the track actually begins to become interesting and less like the track is going to drag on and on. DiFranco’s performance is consistently convincing on this track through the softer parts of the song to the more heart wrenching chorus of the track. It’s a powerful track simply from DiFranco’s performance of this track.

The final track, Joyful Girl, is definitely a good ending track for the album. It’s a minimalistic track and I like how the song itself was mixed as DiFranco’s voice seems a lot closer than in some of the other tracks on the album, making it a bit more intimate-sounding simply because of proximity. I like the little choir sounds in the chorus as well; it seems to be the only other thing added to the other than the simply guitar and DiFranco’s voice. Simple and effective ending to the album.

Ani DiFranco’s album, Dilate is generally a strong collection of works from this singer-songwriter. I’m a bit more sceptical of some of her slower songs on this album, but the upbeat works are really excellent and full of emotion and energy. It amuses me a bit to compare the rather angry opening of this track to the subdued ending of the album. In any case, DiFranco is a seasoned performer and vocalist throughout this album from her softer tones of her voice to the angrier, edgier tones. She knows how to emote well in these tracks and it shows in her performances. The only point in her vocals where I was a bit more sceptical was when she dabbled into whispering, which usually ended up as a miss for me. She does pull out an emotion-filled album from start to finish, but not without a few poor tracks. However, the strength of some of the other tracks definitely does make up for tracks like “Amazing Grace”.

Favourites:
Superhero