![]() Become You‘s first single, “Moment of Forgiveness” seems spare on first listen, but returning to the song reveals its depth and warmth. The album starts off with the Ray-penned “Moment of Forgiveness”, a song that seems to be deliberately hushed in order to set the mood of the disc. On the other, while the reduced electricity is the most immediately noticeable thing about Become You, by the end of the album you realize that a great range of style has been covered in the course of 12 tracks, proof that a return to one’s roots does not necessarily have to mean rehashing the past. ![]() On the one hand, there is definitely a sense of “back-to-basics” with this disc. Become You might justify the feelings of both sets of ears. While some praised Come On Now Social as a bold step that reinvigorated the creativity of the Indigo Girls, others felt that it swung too far in the opposite direction of the sound that first made them so successful. ![]() Perhaps Ray had gotten enough of the rock out of her soul for a while to make the return to the mellow a welcome change, but whatever the cause, the results in Become You justify whatever catalyst was necessary to produce the album. Ray, conversely, formed the Daemon Records label to showcase other Southern musicians, especially Southern punk bands, as well as producing her own harder-edged solo album, Stag, last year and team-up touring with the Butchies. Sailers has contributed her songwriting and performing talents a multitude of places, notably the excellent duet with Vonda Shepard, “Baby, Don’t You Break My Heart Slow”, which appeared on the second Ally McBeal collection, and has generally favored her softer balladeering. Additionally, while the Indigo Girls have been a hard-working, hard-touring act since forming in the Girls’ high school days, both Ray and Sailers have found the time and creative energy to devote to various side projects and guest appearances with other musicians. Her roots were influenced more by Patti Smyth than Sailers’ Joni Mitchell. Between herself and Emily Sailers, Ray was always the one who held up the rock end of things. What is slightly surprising is that the move back to the acoustic was prompted by Amy Ray. And while any of their seven prior albums have been much loved by fans, their eponymous, fully acoustic 1989 release is still held up as among the best they’ve ever recorded. Although the Indigos began to incorporate a fuller electric sound on 1997’s Shaming of the Sun, and fully realized this shift with 1999’s Come on Now Social, it was never at the cost of their core folk leanings. When the Indigo Girls announced they were going back to the acoustic foundation that they’d built their arguably tremendous folk-rock career on, the news was probably met with pleasant anticipation rather than surprise.
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