In their first 25 years, 22 different women sang in Sweet Honey in the Rock. That floating membership bespeaks not artistic turmoil, but the vitality of the band's communal, participatory democracy. No one singer dominates; the individual nuances of the five voices are preserved within the whole. The shape and sound of Sweet Honey's music--a daring survey of gospel, jazz, and African chanting--is itself political, but the group is still anchored by founder Bernice Johnson Reagon's vibrato-rich baritone, whether in her bold leads or doo-wop harmonies. To celebrate their silver anniversary, the group presents 13 new songs, mostly sung a cappella save some African drumming and tambourine, and focusing on original compositions with messages as intense as anything they've recorded. The most successful pieces, however, transcend the hectoring tone of songs such as "Greed" and "Run." And the biggest surprise comes in their doo-wop arrangement of Thomas A. Dorsey's "Standing By the Bedside of a Neighbor," in which the spiritual and the political merge seamlessly. --Roy Kasten