The Innocence Mission sounds like the start of spring -- with pure, light vocals, gentle acoustic guitars, and haunting, yet hopeful lyrics. "Birds of My Neighborhood," the Pennsylvania trio's latest release, is an ideal album for the coming warm emergence from winter.
The songs on the album are elemental, evoking images of big sky, wind, rolling hills, love, family, summer and winter, birds and Canada, which becomes a metaphor for change on the track "The Lakes of Canada."
The album's construction, formed in a studio in the farmlands of Lancaster, Penn., lends itself to the development of a raw, natural sound. All but one song were written by Don or Karen Peris, husband and wife and two thirds of the Innocence Mission, who also supply the lead vocals and play most of the instruments. Mike Bitts pitches in on the upright bass and occasionally with background vocals.
This consistency in production results in a tightly structured album that, when listened to as a whole, sounds like one long lullaby, with each song a subtle verse rather than an individual statement.
"Birds of My Neighborhood" makes full use of melodies picked out on a piano and an acoustic or electric guitar. The sparse, yet rich clarity of the album showcases Karen Peris' high-octave range, which is often supported by the men's more mellow tones.
While she shares high-pitched vocal talents with other pop sopranos like Jewel, or the women who front Sixpence None the Richer and The Sundays, Peris doesn't sound cute or young when she sings. She manages to sing high without sugarcoating the doubt, sorrow, or loss in her songs; her soprano is wise, instead of innocent. Peris' intense vocals do, however, reinforce the joy found at the end of a long struggle.
Peris' smooth delivery soothes and glosses over deceptively simple lyrics. The overall tone of the album suggests finding hope when faced with loss. Referring to the trio's own name, their songs reflect on more pure and innocent times in the past, on memories of people loved and gone away.
Pain lurks in the track "You Are the Light" -- "There's a hidden life for everyone./Sorrow remains though you can tell no one" -- but in the track "July" lies the promise of happier days ahead -- "July, July/I've seen the greatest light./Too much light to deny." Peris personifies seasonal transition when she sings "If I could I would break into flower./If I could I'd no longer be barren" on the track "I Haven't Seen this Day Before."
The birds of "Birds of My Neighborhood" fly intermittently throughout the songs, floating on Peris' soaring vocals. The birds are another metaphor for hope and life, as on the track "I Was in the Air"-- "Who raised high the lowest tree?/Birds of every wing shall dwell within"--but are most prominent in their absence, as on the track "Birdless", when Peris sings "We are birdless,/flowerless in the spring/and we cannot sing."
Because Innocence Mission produced "Birds of My Neighborhood" during a traumatic period when the Perises were trying to start a family, the birds of the album might also represent their longed-for child.
The Innocence Mission pays homage to the 1960s folk and singer/songwriter tradition with its poetic imagery and spare acoustic guitars. References to Neil Young and Brian Wilson, and a cover of John Denver's song "Follow Me" show the landscape in which the trio find their roots.
Far from nave, The Innocence Mission and "Birds of My Neighborhood" express the promise of spring discovered only after a long dark winter.
