Up up up up up up in flames

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat

The albums just aren't all that good anymore.

Not a Pretty Girl was amazing. It's usually regarded as the album that put Ani where she is now - the last word in female revolution in the music industry. Dilate was good. Little Plastic Castles had its moments.

And Up up up up up up is a dull shade of mediocre.

"'Tis of Thee" is nothing short of brilliant; it reverberates with Ani circa Puddle Dive and Imperfectly. "Angry Any More" is the other good song on the album, and again, it sounds like the older, folkier Ani.

It's not that I can't appreciate an artist's growth; it's not that I don't like her new stuff just because it's different. It's that she's spreading herself too thin. She's trying too hard to be different. The only things that are working are the things that use the old formula, and I find something terribly, terribly wrong with that.

Ani tries to get dancey and funky and it's-the-late-nineties-folk-isn't-hip, and we get "Hat Shaped Hat." Ok. A hat shaped... like a hat. "Virtue" is a train wreck of clichŽeacute;s, and "Come Away From It" falls flat on its face.

And to top it off, the album is actually called Up up up up up up. Yes, that's six "ups." Try saying it aloud and you sound like a seal.

The poetry is dying. The lyrics just don't have the same kick that they used to. Ani's strength is not in her music; it's in her words. Sure, she can fingerpick a mean guitar, but what's a folk song if it doesn't have something to say?

And Ani just doesn't seem to have much to say anymore. Her last two albums combined barely have enough quality material to make a decent EP.