Album Review: Lung of Love by Amy Ray

Any artistic output that matches the consistent modesty of the Indigo Girls’ could, on the flip side, be criticized for being unambitious—with every new LP from the ‘Girls, you can expect another batch of straight arrow folk pop/rock pearls, but very little if any divergence from the formula they’ve thoroughly established. But who could really complain? Not only do the Indigo Girls (as well as Amy Ray, individually) fill the classicist folk/rock/pop hole almost singularly, but adherence to convention is absolutely encouraged in the folk tradition that they’re (sorta) disciples of. You always know precisely what you’re getting yourself into here.

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On Lung of Love, Amy Ray's fourth studio solo album, she explores her rock and Americana roots far more deeply than she did on Indigo Girls' 2011 album Beauty Queen Sister. While she's no hard rocker, Ray's always been the edgier half of the duo musically. This set, despite the uptempo pace of many of the tunes, is more often than not a particularly wrenching set of love songs that trace everything from brokenness to acceptance to the resolution to transcend.

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If there’s one thing Amy Ray fans can count on, it’s the sometime-Indigo Girl’s kinship with incredible harmonies. And it only make sense that on her most collaborative solo album to date (Ray, usually a lone songwriting ranger, co-penned Lung of Love with producer Greg Griffith), those harmonies keep its 10 songs in-tact. There are some odd choices on Lung of Love, which, for better or worse, has the feel of a record that came together with great passion and immediacy, but not much belaboring over sequencing and synchronicity.

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