Mirabal

The results inevitably recall John Trudell, another American Indian who fused tribal themes and rock & roll with striking effect, but Mirabal is less political and more personal than his predecessor. When Mirabal sings in the voice of a "Medicine Man," for example, he laments that he can "razzle dazzle ghosts," but "can't manage your love for me." On "Sundance Love," he turns a nature hymn into an erotic ballad. The album's centerpiece is a marvelously detailed 10-minute narrative about "Tony & Allison," a pair of young Navajos who go on a crime spree across the Southwest; it ends with Allison wondering how she drifted so far from the tribal virtues of her childhood and how she can get back there. --Geoffrey Himes