Amy Ray and Emily Saliers are ideal duet partners. Their voices soar and swoop as one, alternately raucous and soothing, and when they sing together, they radiate a sense of shared purpose that adds muscle to their lanky, deeply felt folk-tinged pop songs. These ten tunes, framed by the acoustic guitars of the two Georgian women, make a worthy major-label debut.

Not that they haven't already been noticed by many fellow performers. The allstars that support them on this album handle the songs as if they were wearing gloves, careful not to make any unnecessary changes. Fellow up-and-comers Hothouse Flowers help them subtly nail down a pair of songs, Michael Stipe offers up a few vocal lines on "Kid Fears," and all of the members of R.E.M. push the pair through the midtempo jangles of "Tried to Be True."

But Ray and Saliers must learn to let their songs relax more. Because they mean each song to be "serious," they feel compelled to drop lifeless "meaningful" lines, like "Darkness has a hunger that's insatiable" (from "Closer to Fine"), that frequently undermine the power of their delivery. The Indigo Girls are a young, promising duo that could grow into something even more special if they don't think maturity has to be somber. (RS 551)

JIMMY GUTERMAN