Become You

1	Moment of Forgiveness 3:13
2	Deconstruction 4:15
3	Become You 3:46
4	You've Got to Show 4:44
5	Yield 2:48
6	Collecting You 4:31
7	Hope Alone 3:56
8	Bitterroot 2:46
9	Our Deliverance 4:12
10	Starkville 4:22
11	She's Saving Me 5:04
12	Nuevas Senoritas 4:34

Barnes & Noble

How much of a return to their roots is the Indigo Girls' Become You? So much so that Amy Ray and Emily Saliers debuted the songs from their eighth studio album on the road as a duo, as if it were 1985 all over again. Even though the eventual album features their backing band, the approach is wholly reminiscent of the acoustic-based sound that made early hits like "Closer to Fine" so heartrending and memorable. The band and producer Peter Collins, who worked on the Girls' Rites of Passage and Swamp Ophelia, flesh out the songs with warm, subtle accompaniment. Of the dozen here, Saliers' buoyant folk-pop half -- including "Deconstruction," "Collecting You," and the Latin-tinged "You Got to Show" -- are lovely, with resolute choruses and the songwriter's willowy soprano guiding the way. Ray's share is more stylistically diverse: The organ on "Moment of Forgiveness" adds a touch of soul; "Bitter Root" has a rugged, blues-based sound à la Bonnie Raitt; and "Nuevas Senoritas," inspired by a trip to Chiapas, Mexico, takes the blues south of the border. But throughout, whether touching on the personal or the political -- or, oftentimes, both -- the duo's songs are thoughtfully wrought and beautifully presented, making the most of their greatest asset: two voices that dovetail gorgeously. Lydia Vanderloo

All Music Guide

Indigo Girls' eighth studio album, released 15 years after their first, finds the duo of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers in a sense starting over. Using their regular backup band of keyboardist Carol Isaacs, bassist Claire Kenny, and drummer Brady Blade, but only a couple of guest musicians -- in contrast to albums that featured lots more players, many of them well known -- and returning to producer Peter Collins, who worked with them on their second, fourth, and fifth albums, they have stripped down their approach to something approaching the folk-rock style with which they began. The restrained instrumentation and arrangements focus attention on the songs themselves, and Ray and Saliers, as usual writing separately and alternating tracks, have similar things to say. Eleven of the 12 songs are addressed by an "I" to a "you" (the exception, "She's Saving Me," might as well be), and for the most part they deal in romantic complications, with the "I" looking back on a past romance or detailing the difficulties that may lead to a breakup. In the opening track and first single, Ray's "Moment of Forgiveness," for example, the narrator notes that two years have gone by since her lover left and asks, hopelessly, "When are you gonna come home?" Ray is characteristically more raw in her singing and in her expression; she also provides the album's musical contrasts, whether it's the "Games People Play"-style Southern soul of "Moment of Forgiveness" or the Mexican tone of "Nuevas Senoritas." Saliers is more abstract, titling one of her laments "Deconstruction" and, in "She's Saving Me," even offers a more positive statement. But it is Ray's title track, in which a daughter of the South confronts the region's reprehensible mythology -- not a song of romance -- that is the album's most wrenching and powerful statement. William Ruhlmann

Billboard

When you have an act that never stops growing, it's no wonder that countless fans follow their every move.