No new record by the Roches can bring the awesome surprise their debut did, but their third album is nearly as perfect. The first may have been prettier by conventional folk-music standards, but Keep On Doing is more ambitious, emphasizing some peculiar instrumentation–especially the coolly excited, pulsing guitar runs by Robert Fripp–that often gives it the feel of rock, although the...

Just before The Roches was released, the singing and songwriting toasts of Greenwich Village played a small university in a Massachusetts manufacturing town. "Girls," the frats behind me sneered when they saw three slightly weird sisters carrying two acoustic guitars. "They can't even sing," the boys howled next as the trio skidded into the giddy, tinny harmonies of "We," their habitual opener (it...

The Roches have defined their own style of fearless folk on seven albums since 1979, indulging their sense of humor with jabs at jerks on the loose and other nightmarish amours. Yet beneath Maggie, Terre and Suzzy's shimmering vocals and goofy thematic tangents flows a melancholy undercurrent that belies the trio's outward insouciance. In fact, their more introspective writing is their most...

Because they function as an acoustic group but want to avoid the folk-singer clichés, Maggie, Terre and Suzzy Roche have learned to stretch their voices like a string quartet. Since their a cappella arrangements lack the rhythmic sense of the Persuasions', the idea of backing the sisters with judicious electric support makes sense. But inappropriate instrumentation dilutes all but the best...