Track Listing

1. Fill It Up Again
2. Heartache For Everyone
3. Free In You
4. Perfect World
5. All That We Let In
6. Tether
7. Come On Home
8. Dairy Queen
9. Something Real
10. Cordova
11. Rise Up

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #84476 in Music
• Released on: 2004-02-17
• Number of discs: 2

Amazon.com
Some 20 years into their career, the Indigo Girls continue to work the same protected turf they staked out with their first album, building on their strengths--gorgeous melodies, teardrop vocal blends, and the occasional poetic insight worth jotting on the back of an envelope. But on their ninth album, their irritating habits remain as intractable as ever: must every romantic spat be framed against saving the whales (okay, the shrinking water supply) and the fight for clean air? And why not put all that randy energy to good use? On "Tether," a Joan Osborne-fronted song that would have aired on progressive rock stations in the '60s and '70s, the three need to kick it up a notch and set a match to those dueling, gasoline-powered guitars. Yet when the chips are down, both Emily Sailers and Amy Ray turn out inspired songs, especially "Something Real," in which a long-awaited reunion with a friend leaves Sailers full of regrets, and "Cordova," a haunting eulogy in which Ray's choices in lust and liberal causes start to blur. --Alanna Nash

Customer Reviews

Like a valentine to their fans
Is there a more devoted legion of fans than Indigo Girls fans? We buy everything sight unseen (and sound unheard), we see them every chance we get, we light up when we talk about them, we speak reverently even about their misfires. All this for a folk duo with radically different styles and voices.

We are good to them, though, because they're so good to us. The Indigo Girls, through all their various experimentations and forays into fields that were probably best left unplowed, have never been inaccessable, and have never put anything less than 100% of their souls into their music. Check out "1200 Curfews," for example, for a loaded live album that is so generous and packed with great stuff that it feels fresh with every listen.

"All that We let In" is their most cohesive album in years. For a while, Indigo Girls albums and projects were starting to feel like "Emily vs. Amy" - only the occasional harmony reminded us that these two were a band, not a pair of soloists. But now they feel together, united, even friendlier to each other. Even better, the music is joyful and free. It sounds like Amy and Emily (isn't it great how we all feel like we know them personally?) turned their attention away from proving they could punk out (Amy) or write the perfectly-crafted love song (Emily), and just wrote and sang great music.

"All that We Let In" has everything that we love - gorgeous harmonies & melodies, nifty vocal interplay (the title song, especially), fun and occasionally self-effacing lyrics, and that righteous blend of anger and love that they share with the best revolutionary musicians. Listen to these songs and marvel at their progress as writers - could Amy have come up with anything as wonderfully direct and poppy as "Heartache for Everyone" 15 years ago? Could Emily blend a love song with environmental issues as slyly? Each song is its own little treasure, a gift back to their fans.

It's not a perfect album, I guess. The centerpiece "Tether" rocks when it should ROCK, and true to form, their endearing faults - Amy's arcane lyrics, Emily's mixed metaphors - occasionally take center stage. But we love them for that, too. Thanks again, Indigo Girls! See you on tour!

Give it time... it gets better. Too much production, though
Four stars is not accurate. I would give it 4.5 stars, but that is not an option with Amazon.

Let me say off the bat that I have had this CD for a few months (promo copy). At first listen, I wanted to throw it out of my car window and scream. The over-production and the arrangements drove me crazy. I had heard every song except for "Rise Up" live numerous times on tour over the past year. In fact, I have heard most of the songs from their earliest rawest forms before the album was even recorded. I felt that a lot of what Amy and Emily were trying to say got lost in Peter Collins' arrangements.

After listening to it obsessivly for a month, it started growing on me. Sure, what happened to "Heartache for Everyone" is a shame. And I miss Amy, her mandolin, and nothing else on both "Cordova" and "Dairy Queen," but they are still great songs.

The lyrics are there -- they are classic Indigo. "Perfect World" and "Tether" (the best track on the album, in my opinion) are some of Amy's strongest songs, lyrically, ever. I would have had Michelle Malone do the backing vocals for "Tether" instead of Joan Osburn (Malone did backup vocals on the November 2003 tour) And "Come on Home," an unusually dark song for Emily, is classic Emily in that it will move you to tears. The finale, "Rise Up," leaves you feeling upbeat, more classic Emily.

All That We Let In is still Indigo despite the accordians, wurlitzers, pianos, organs, etc. Just imagine the songs stripped down (or make sure to get the limited edition with the DVD to hear/see some of the songs live and raw) It still will make you thank some force out there, for the millionth time, that Amy met Emily on that playground back in Decatur, and have brought their music, activsm, and of course just themeslves, into your life. I could have just done without some of the production and arrangements. (I still skip over "Heartache for Everyone" and listen to my boots instead...)

But give it time. I did, and I am enjoying it so much more now. I have been a hardcore Indigo Girls fan since 1989, and I have had every album on or before release date. Not everything is going to sound like their last album or their earlier albums, but you will see that despite everything else, the songs are still Indigo Girls songs.

most accessible in recent years
Let me start by saying that I am a big Indigo Girls fan. I have all their CD's. When I first got this one I was really shocked by the cartoon layout of the artwork through the whole album, but it really is quirky and cute. I think it's a nice change and it goes well with the mood of the album itself.

This CD is full of back to basics with the beautiful harmonies we have come to expect from Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. Overall it's upbeat and much more accessible than Come On Now Social or Become You, two CD's that had to grow on many people. I have taken to All That We Let In within the first two listen throughs and I already know that it's going to be in heavy rotation in my stereo in the coming months.