The coffee percolates, the birds chirp, the crisp clean air of morning in San Francisco is upon me. I revel in these days, these new music Tuesdays when everything seems new again. It’s days like this that remind me of going on trips as a young boy with my family. On a modest budget my parents would traverse with us kids, the natural wonders of the United States, Yosemite, Yellowstone, The Grand Canyon, The Rockies in an effort to teach us that while architecture is magnificent, nature is perfection. I hated those trips as a child, but yearn for that experience today.

The closest I’ve felt to getting back there is listening to Kathleen Edwards’ new album, Voyageur, which was produced by the Canadian singer and Justin Vernon, better known as Bon Iver. There is something about her voice that takes me back. It moves me and its haunting. I listened to her first single “Change the Sheets” a few weeks back and thought it was different, and I loved it. As the entire album has finally dropped this week, I listened intently and it played like a Cormac McCarthy novel reads. It’s nostalgic, desolate in places, watching emotion from the outside in; these are things that evoke strong feelings from followers. Take this verse from the aforementioned “Change the Sheets”:

My love is a stockpile of broken wills

Like Santa Fe, margaritas and sleeping pills

I wanna lie in the cracks of this lonely road

I can fill in the blanks for every time you go home

Here is the truth I swear it used to be fun

Go ahead run

Still, this album is a departure from her previous albums that hung out in that area between alt. country and country. Voyageur has its roots gripped firmly in that new indie rock category that fits so many artists these days. The fascinating thing about the album is that it hearkens back to a time when desolation was the norm. It is reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen’s darkest times, his Nebraska, Ghost of Tom Joad moods.

There is something so effecting about this album that I can’t quite competently explain. I hear it and think of riding in an old car with the windows open. The highway is open and a girl is wearing a flowery summer dress. You stick your head out the window, close your eyes and the wind, the music and the soul of the road envelopes you. Those are just memories, though and suddenly you shudder awake. You lie there and think it felt so real and it felt like it was all happening again. Then you realize you’re back where you started with the coffee, the morning and Kathleen Edwards and as much as you love the memories, you’re content with the way things turned out.

It’s albums like this that leave marks on me like notches on shillelagh. Those albums that reek with discontentment, the power of love without being corny and the power of loss without being mired in the sorrow of it all. It’s almost more powerful to be disaffected and tell the story than to get all Mariah Carey about it and cry over spilled milk. It’s that detachment and anger that I admire. It’s not Alanis Morissette anger, but more of anger at oneself for being so dumb. It becomes thematic as the album starts with that loss, and then towards the end it becomes a struggle to get over all of it. I overuse the word brilliant on occasion, much because of my time in Europe, but this album is absolutely brilliant. In its bleakness, its emotional tonality and in Kathleen Edwards haunting vocals that mourn the loss of emotion.

You can follow Matt De Mello on Twitter: @MattkDemello