Spring Break
Indigo Girls offer sunny, two-disc collection
4 out of 5 stars
John Bailey
Issue date: 3/26/09 Section: Focus
It's tough being Spring. I don't think you should have to punch your way through the sheet ice without some help, you know, without a soundtrack. Spring should listen to "Poseidon and the Bitter Bug."
After being rudely kicked from their previous recording label, "Poseidon" marks the Indigo Girls' first completely independent release since "Strange Fire" in 1987. They've taken the sudden creative freedom and run with it, including a second disc with acoustic versions of the album's 10 tracks.
The fully orchestrated half of the album is a big, generous helping of sunlight, with the radio-friendly "Love of Our Lives" and "What Are You Like" blazing a shining path. A round, carefree banjo accents the intimate "Second Time Around," and "Fleet of Hope" had me cranking my speakers and singing along (or trying).
Perhaps the best critique of the first disc is that it's too easy to love. The instrumentation is so buoyant, so round. The soaring vocal duets turn to candy in your ears, and maybe you shouldn't be putting candy in your ears.
The first Indigo Girls song I ever heard was actually a cover of Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet." I was struck by the sparse acoustic instrumentation and Amy Ray's gritty, howled vocals, and I loved it. Since then, recent releases by the folk duo have progressively gained more instruments and more complexity - losing a lot of that lonely, strangled, beautiful rage along the way.
Fortunately, the acoustic version of "Poseidon" almost reaches those heights, giving Ray and Emily Saliers a toe-tapping background for their homespun, cynical harmonies, along with a bonus track. They stretch their chemistry a little far at times, with the bridge of "What Are You Like?" being the worst offender, but elsewhere, without all those instruments getting in the way of their vocal chords, the Girls are a thrill to listen to.
What makes the acoustic disc a real gem is the Ray-and-Saliers' lyricism. Age has put a few dampers on their youthful passion, but it also gives a weighty poignancy to their observations on life and love. "Ghost of the Gang" might be a simple sentiment, and maybe it's unfair for a college kid to tear up over a song about lost friends and better days, but I'm fine with simple. Spring is a simple season, and it looks like the Indigo Girls may have found a simple, independent spring of their own.
After being rudely kicked from their previous recording label, "Poseidon" marks the Indigo Girls' first completely independent release since "Strange Fire" in 1987. They've taken the sudden creative freedom and run with it, including a second disc with acoustic versions of the album's 10 tracks.
The fully orchestrated half of the album is a big, generous helping of sunlight, with the radio-friendly "Love of Our Lives" and "What Are You Like" blazing a shining path. A round, carefree banjo accents the intimate "Second Time Around," and "Fleet of Hope" had me cranking my speakers and singing along (or trying).
Perhaps the best critique of the first disc is that it's too easy to love. The instrumentation is so buoyant, so round. The soaring vocal duets turn to candy in your ears, and maybe you shouldn't be putting candy in your ears.
The first Indigo Girls song I ever heard was actually a cover of Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet." I was struck by the sparse acoustic instrumentation and Amy Ray's gritty, howled vocals, and I loved it. Since then, recent releases by the folk duo have progressively gained more instruments and more complexity - losing a lot of that lonely, strangled, beautiful rage along the way.
Fortunately, the acoustic version of "Poseidon" almost reaches those heights, giving Ray and Emily Saliers a toe-tapping background for their homespun, cynical harmonies, along with a bonus track. They stretch their chemistry a little far at times, with the bridge of "What Are You Like?" being the worst offender, but elsewhere, without all those instruments getting in the way of their vocal chords, the Girls are a thrill to listen to.
What makes the acoustic disc a real gem is the Ray-and-Saliers' lyricism. Age has put a few dampers on their youthful passion, but it also gives a weighty poignancy to their observations on life and love. "Ghost of the Gang" might be a simple sentiment, and maybe it's unfair for a college kid to tear up over a song about lost friends and better days, but I'm fine with simple. Spring is a simple season, and it looks like the Indigo Girls may have found a simple, independent spring of their own.
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