The Dreamlife of Angels

Album Review

The popular Christian singers' new album features tunes borne out of some of everyday observations, a taking note of preciousness and trouble and many a moment of encouragement in life and a call to learn how to value one another properly. The life-affirming "Love Is Breathing," for instance, flows like a meditation/prayer concerning a growing fetus inside the womb. "We Are a Beginning" plays like a wedding song, a kind of determined hope statement. "A Beginning," "Hope," "The Valley," and "Give a Little Bit" are new folk song prayers of blessing and release, caroled in four-part melody-harmony-rhapsody-everybody sing spirit. "Girl on Fire," "Hit-n-Run," "Home," "She Stumbles Through the Door," and "Midnight" are stories of love and loss, hope and despair, chance and providence. Pretty much what you might expect from a person of faith living in the real world and trying to keep an optimistic view despite the troubles around her. It's the poetry of everyday life, and Masen delivers it with a convincing passion and makes the listener feel a call to compassion as well.