Albums by this artist

Birds Of My Neighborhood (1999)

Innocence Mission

Birds Of My Neighborhood

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» JONATHAN COHEN | SENIOR EDITOR

Innocence Mission Birds Of My Neighborhood RCA, 1999 RiYL: Red House Painters, The Sundays, Carole King

After three albums of mellow folk/pop for A&M, Lancaster, PA's Innocence Mission became a casualty of the giant Universal merger of '99 and suddenly found itself without a label. To an extent, it's surprising that the band has remained so obscure over its 13-year career, since its gentle music would appeal to any fan of 10,000 Maniacs, The Sundays or Red House Painters. But even though Birds Of My Neighborhood, the band's first album for RCA, does not appreciably expand the musical vocabulary, it ranks as one of Innocence Mission's most enjoyable releases.

Husband-and-wife team Karen and Don Peris are the creative leaders of the group, but Karen Peris shoulders the songwriting duties on 8 1/2 of the 12 songs here and sings all but one of them. Her opaque, high-register voice is a near mirror-image of The Sundays' Harriet Wheeler, but it's her approach to lyric writing that gives the songs such a personal touch. Peris writes in unusual, declarative sentences that freeze the imagery in an odd sense of time ("we will walk on a hill," "And I would like to cry in the car / The blue violet hills and the voice of Neil Young," "something will shine in the backyard"). Her memories are ours, her observations instantly familiar, from the childlike naiveté of "Snow" to the Paul Simon-esque "I Haven't Seen This Day Before," a celebration of life's most basic pleasures.

Some of the more bleak songs on this album have an austerity that's almost orthodox, but Innocence Mission is one of the few groups that use this kind of songwriting to its advantage. The glum "She May Turn Around" offers a confident pep-talk to a recently jilted suitor ("You will not give in to despair / it's everywhere but in your heart), while the more sprightly "July" revels in the inner strength derived from simple faith.

Countless influences can be heard on Birds Of My Neighborhood, from Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Carole King to the intensely personal songcraft of Red House Painters. It's a testament to the Peris' powers of expression that the music here rarely sounds redundant - even a cover of John Denver's "Follow Me" resists the overbearing sentimentality of its predecessor. This is a mature album ideal for Sunday mornings, quiet time or a break from the cynicism of everyday life.

JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"