Up, Up, Up, Up, Up, Up

Ani diFranco is not one to rest on her laurels. This, her twelfth album, was recorded only a matter of months after Little Plastic Castle, which was released last year to huge critical acclaim. There is no sign of her prodigious workrate causing any lapse in the quality control department, however. Let me put it simply: this is one of the most heartfelt and beautiful albums you are likely to hear.

From the first track, 'Tis of Thee', it is clear that this is anything but disposable pop. The song is built, like many of those here, around acoustic guitar, organ, the deftest of drumming, and DiFranco's superb voice. The lyric, meanwhile, is a razorsharp strike against the economic apartheid of the singer's native US: "The old dogs have got a new trick/It's called criminalise the symptoms/While you spread the disease."

The stunning 'Trickle Down' is in the same vein. Imagine the passion of Nebraska-era Springsteen fused with a contemporary production and a vocal that sends shivers down the back of your neck. The lyric is a first-person narrative about the demise of an industrial town, but unlike say, U2 on 'Red Hill Town', DiFranco knows the power of understatement and everyday detail: "Every night we were glued to the TV news at six o'clock/ Cuz it was hard to tell what was real and what was talk."

It would do Up, Up, Up, Up, Up, Up a disservice, though, to suggest it is overwhelmingly made up of material representing Ani's social views. The female Billy Bragg she is not. 'Come Away From It', urged on by Julie Wolf's rolling hammond organ, is a painful exploration of a relationship which is falling apart due to one partner's chemical and emotional dependency. ("I'll tell you what I don't like/ I don't like that I have to put the training wheels/Back onto your bike"). 'Angry Anymore', meanwhile, manages to chart the development of a mother-daughter relationship from childhood idyll through youthful angst to adult acceptance. More to the point, Difranco manages to tell the tale without sounding either twee of boringly earnest, largely by coming up with gemlike lines such as "She taught me how to wage a cold war with quiet charm/But I just want to walk through my life unarmed".

Not all of the album is comprised of such heavy fare. Sure, there are songs which are angry, disturbing and sad, but there is also a sense of joy - partly due to the richness of the musical textures, but also lyrically on tracks like 'Everest'. The song finds Ani ploughing a similar furrow to Van Morrison on 'Cyprus Avenue' - lost in a series of moments which catapult the singer out of a sullied world and into a spiritual/mystical realm. In DiFranco's case there is a church service, gospel singing, and a whispered conversation when "the moon was so beautiful/ the ocean held up a mirror."

Up, Up, Up, Up, Up, Up is a wonderful record. The nay-sayers may groan at the idea of another album by a 'sensitive singer-songwriter'. Who cares? This listener thinks he's just heard his album of the year.