Indigo Girls

The Indigo Girls personify what happens when two distinct sensibilities, voices, and worldviews come together to create something transcendently its own. Amy Ray's a lapsed goth girl with an astringent cynicism; Emily Saliers is the pop optimist with the taste for jangle. Together their passion outstripped their polish, but only for the space of one album. Their earnest and folky debut, Strange Fire, didn't stoke much interest, but it did beget Emily Saliers and Amy Ray's signature sound -- acoustic, passionate, and witty. Some interesting bonus tracks on the 2000 rerelease make informative listening for fans of the outfit's more complex and satisfying later work. But it wasn't until 1989's self-titled album that the Girls came into their own. They had a hand from indie darlings such as Irish singer/songwriter Luka Bloom and R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, and a hefty label push, but there was much else on the Girls' side -- the mainstream visibility of queer activism cleared the way for a young, modern breed of the guitar-toting lesbian, and Ray's and Saliers' rumored lesbianism gave them an edge. It helps that this was some of the most difficult, dangerous, beautifully assembled folk-pop ever made. Nomads Indians Saints takes a more generous, poetic, global view of love, faith, and loss: The title song refers to beatific states of being, and the searing "You and Me of the 10,000 Wars" is a mature and unflinching look at the bedroom battlefield. Still struggling not to give in to a sliding scale of morality, Indigo Girls burrow deeper into the own psyches on Rites of Passage, exploring the joys of art and the pitfalls of aesthetic solipsism, all the time remaining on the political side of the angels (in the "issue" songs about the plight of the Native American and other left-wing sure things) without alienating the kind of listener who just can't help singing along. Swamp Ophelia is brushed across a bigger canvas; it's prog-rock without the pomp. The emotional scope is enormous on the lush and thoughtful love songs, the rich instrumentation (cello, mandolin, violin, viola, bouzouki, dobro, percussion including bongos, vibrachime, and much more) adds depth to the Girls' increasingly sophisticated palette of concerns.

With Shaming of the Sun, the formula is firmly in place, but the duo seems to be out of tunes -- there isn't much to catch the ear after the kickoff, "Shame on You." But as one century gives way to the next, the Girls seem to perk up, in part because they haul in every indie/folkfest name in their Rolodexes -- Joan Osborne, Meshell Ndegéocello, Sheryl Crow, Sinéad O'Connor's backing band, and Kate Shellenbach from girl-funk outfit Luscious Jackson -- and in part because Ray and Saliers stretch out of the folk-pop realm and into rockier ones, idling in the roadhouse here and taking a turn at slick country there. Then they throw it all away on Become You, sneaking back to their roots and concentrating mightily on the most pained bare-bones folk yet. All That We Let In, on the other hand, has a few surprises -- the ska-influenced "Heartache for Everyone" and the almost B-52's-like "Perfect World." -- Arion Berger

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide