Rating: **** (4 out of 4)

Availability: Widely Available

Now this is the Indigo Girls.

This album made me fall in love with the music of the Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. The songwriting duo has produced some of the best folk music of the modern era. There's a difference in their styles that is plain to hear. Amy Ray tends to focus on the bizarre and surreal, both musically and lyrically, while Emily Saliers tends to be either more sentimental or more fun in her music. Strangely enough, it's the type of combination that balances out almost perfectly, as it did for John and Paul back when they were the songwriting half of The Beatles. Emily's sense of fun mixes easily with Amy's sense of the absurd to create a balance that swings niether too far into shmaltz nor too far into artsy elitism.

The songs of Emily Saliers and Amy Ray were not made to be sung around the campfire, for the most part. They are fascinating and well-constructed works of music, as in the mutli-layered "Jonas and Ezekiel," one of the few songs that is consistently successful in raising the small hairs on the back of my neck when I listen to it. Then there's the harmonic beauty of "Ghost," a burning love ballad of a love that is perhaps more consumptive than constructive, but which cannot be denied. Amy Ray proves that she is capable of being a solo singer and guitarist as she covers Mark Knopfler's "Romeo and Juliet" with crackling success.

It's the powerful musicianship apparent in Rites of Passage that makes attempts like Amy and Emily's later Shaming of the Sun difficult to accept. There's so much quality in the music, that you can't help but feel that Shaming doesn't even come close to tapping their creative potential. Rites of Passage belongs on the shelves of any lover of good music.

The opinions expressed in the above reviews are those of Glen Williams and may not represent the views of slac.com or any of its members. Compliments, complaints, and comments should be addressed to gandalf@tricon.net

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