1. To The Teeth 2. Soft Shoulder 3. Wish I May 4. Freakshow 5. Going Once 6. Hello Birmingham 7. Back Back Back 8. Swing 9. Carry You Around 10. Cloud Blood 11. The Arrivals Gate 12. Providence 13. I Know This Bar

Ani DiFranco has done what no other artist in the '90s has managed to do. She puts out an album a year, tours endlessly, is in-your-face political, and runs the whole game herself. It's one-stop shopping with the self-proclaimed "little folk singer." She's the artist, publisher, record company executive, career executor, not to mention hipster and trendsetter, all rolled into one. What has always been amazing about DiFranco is her unquenchable verve and vitriol that comes across no matter what simple observation she's turned into an epiphany. Her quick tongue and insightful wit turns the ordinary into the extraordinary. Perhaps the most clairvoyant moment on her new platter, To the Teeth, is "Wish I May," where DiFranco ponders her ability to withstand the pressures of the lifestyle she has chosen. As she sings "I don't think I am strong enough/To do this much longer/God, I wish I was stronger/This song could never be long enough," the self-examination is both piercing and moving. Her smothered whisper on "Cloud Blood" mingles with a quietly insistent rhythm and willful guitar-plucked melody as she intones "Every other song someone's trying to write angels into the world." Some of the most beautiful angels of recent memory are captured here on To the Teeth. Nevin Martell