Sunday, November 16, 2008
A+E, Music, Reviews

AMY RAY

“DIDN’T IT FEEL KINDER” (DAEMON)

Release No. 3 in an intermittent solo career that started in 2001 finds Indigo Girl Ray moving further from the edgier punk and indie-rock that influenced her earlier efforts. Even though she uses these albums as repositories for songs that don’t fit the mold of her full-time project, there’s nothing secondhand about them or the performances.

    Ray is forthright about her gay philosophies on “Cold Shoulder” (“I hang with the deviants and the tranny nation”), “She’s Got to Be,” “SLC Radio” (about Salt Lake City’s pro-gay FM station) and others, but her lyrics, while direct, are never heavy-handed. Musically, this is the best she’s sounded, with a sanded-down, almost slick approach that does the melodies justice. A few guitar-heavy rockers, such as “Blame is a Killer,” sneak in, and “Who Sold the Gun” sounds like an outtake from the Clash’s “Sandanista!” But aside from a liberal scattering of f-bombs, this is on the whole a more musically subdued disc.
   
Ray pushes her voice throughout, and sounds truly soulful on the creeping, jazzy, Steely Dan-ish “She’s Got to Be,” one of the disc’s most melodic and commercial selections, highlighted by sumptuous harmonies from Brandi Carlile.  

    “Hey, let love abide,” Ray sings on “Rabbit Foot,” seemingly channeling the Dude from “The Big Lebowski.” But Ray’s overriding theme of sexual and political oppression is a serious concept. It’s handled with grace and dignity on these powerful songs, making for an album every bit as impressive as anything she’s done with Emily Saliers. 3.5 STARS—Hal Horowitz