Edwards shares tempestuous voyage

While Kathleen Edwards is carrying around a lot of emotional baggage into her fourth disc, “Voyageur,” the Canadian alt-country critics’ darling is also bidding adieu to the old while embracing the prospects of something new.

And the new thing Edwards might find, if the stars are aligned and she gets well-deserved airtime, is a mainstream audience.

Not that she has traded in any of her sass, wit or artistic integrity with her latest. Far from it. But, it doesn’t hurt that after her split from her hubby of four years (and longtime musical collaborator) Colin Cripps, Edwards is on the rebound with current beau, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon (who produced the album, along with providing backing vocals and playing guitar, piano, organ, bass, banjo and xylophone.)

Edwards has a voice that falls somewhere between Suzanne Vega and Florence Welch (of Florence + the Machine fame), but she is not as artsy as Vega or pasty as Florence. Whether she’s trying to reinvent herself, retreat from a dysfunctional relationship or rekindle a romantic spark, Edwards is more earthy and organic than her aforementioned contemporaries and has a lot to say about the human condition when one has a heavy heart, a restless heart or a heart that feels light as a feather.

The hottest days of the summer brought Edwards together with her lover, but the tempestuousness of their hearts are destined to pull them apart on the opening track, “Empty Threat.” Edwards sings about starting anew and moving from the Great White North to the Good Ol’ U.S.A. She talks a good game (and sings an even better one) but doesn’t have the will to follow through. With the wide-eyed innocence of a capricious daydreamer, the Canadian songbird chips away at her acoustic guitar like a woodpecker peeling away a tree’s bark, as she tenderly croons, “I’m moving to America/I’m moving to America/It’s an empty threat.” Edwards considers giving into her fleeting flights of fancy but catches herself before she loses her footing and lets go of her safety net.

Edwards feels an uncanny kinship with her insecure stage performer/anti-people-person boyfriend on the musical character-study, “Chameleon/Comedian.” While her stand-up partner hides behind a funny face, pratfalls and punch lines, Edwards realizes she does the same thing but in her singing and songwriting. Thanks to her emotive voice and probing words, you can feel a true sense of loneliness and the longing that comes with being a tortured artist, a quality that is magnified when the tortured artist is in love with someone who’s cut out of the same cloth.

Our fallen heroine braces herself for what is going to be a messy breakup on the compelling and complex confessional, “A Safe Place to Land.” Sharing harmonies with Vernon, who adds a beautiful fragility to Edwards’ tortured purging of unresolved feelings and devastating failures, Edwards snaps, “Calling it quits/You think this is easy?/I swear I hurt/You call in the jury/Call it a catch/Without any strings attached/I’m looking for a soft place to land.” Pouring her guts out with an unguarded intimacy and heartfelt urgency, Edwards is tender, tortured and vulnerable, despite hinting that she might be the key ingredient in the relationship’s untimely demise.

Despite her love life being in absolute disarray, Edwards feels clean linen and a clean slate is all she needs to get back in the race on “Change the Sheets.” Taking inventory of her life and cutting her loses, Edwards amusingly and triumphantly concludes, “My love is a stockpile of broken wills/Like Santa Fe, margaritas and sleeping pills/I wanna be in the cracks of this lonely road/I can fill in the blanks for every time you don’t phone/Here is the truth/I swear it used to be fun/Go ahead and run, run, run.” Philosophical and flighty at the same time, the number soars with Edwards’ vivacious vocals and her unorthodox view on love, life and her love life.

Edwards takes a break from playing the suburban housewife victim to play the vixen, and she plays it to the hilt, on the irresistible riff-rocker, “Mint.” On what could possibly be the Sheryl Crow song that Sheryl Crow never recorded, Edwards does a nifty Crow impersonation, down to the reverb-soaked guitar line lifted from “My Favorite Mistake.” Not only does the song show off her versatility and her uncanny sex appeal, its nonsensical cooing is the sexiest and coolest sounding so far this year.

Edwards swears she will follow her lover to wherever he goes but her lover might have second thoughts on returning the favor on “Going to Hell.” “I’m going to hell/In a basket I made/Woven from the letters/And it spells your name,” Edwards explains. Despite Edwards’ travel plans hinting that everything is not all right in the Barbie Dream House, the listener can’t help but to be smitten by her, even though there might be no saving her.

Move over Mel Gibson. When it comes to having a cross to bear, Edwards is no slouch as evident on the album’s closing soul-searcher, “For the Record.” On what could be renamed “The Passion of the Canadian Chanteuse,” Edwards feels a deep connection with the Crucifixion of Christ, so much so that she thinks she’s ready for martyrdom because she’s a songwriter. “So hang, hang me up on your cross,” Edwards urges. “For the record/I only wanted to sing songs.” Whether you feel turning words into rhymes is as impressive as turning water into wine, Edwards makes peace with herself and her soothing voice and probing words turn us into a convert.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Edwards shares tempestuous voyage