Iris Dement: Infamous Angel : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Plainly beautiful, Iris DeMent's voice has the high country clarity rarely heard these days -- it would sound perfect whispering from a fireside Victrola. Her songs exert a similar insinuating pull, wrapping the listener first in gossamer, then binding with emotional force. Her words, gifted with the deceptively simple grace of a Southern Baptist hymn ("Like the flowers I am fading/Into my setting sun"), convey the universal truths of myth. Her concerns -- family, forgiveness, death and life here and beyond -- are those of an equal timelessness. "Mama's Opry," about her mother's dream of singing at the hallowed Nashville, Tenn., Ryman auditorium; "Infamous Angel," a gentle tale of a prodigal daughter's return to grace; "After You're Gone," a deathwatch fo