Album Review: Wren, Pink Stone

Pink Stone: Songs from Moose Lodge, the stirring third album from nomadic singer-songwriter Wren, glows with an irrepressible hope. Written in the wake of a debilitating neuro-immune illness, the album is a gently-rendered meditation on nature, solitude, healing, and the warmth that’s always coming, just over the horizon line. 

The music has a stately Celtic lilt, favouring resolving upward melody over dirges; save for the quiet sadness of “Corn Stalks,” the sorrow that colours these songs feels in the rear-view, Wren’s stories looking constantly forward. Plush guitar, twinkling piano, and traditional percussive and woodwind accompaniment grant a serene timelessness, as do the pastoral lyrical motifs ⎯ full of rivers, mountains, otters, fish, cedars and corn stalks, the record is an ecosystem all its own. 

It’s an altogether uplifting collection of music, but Pink Stone’s sweetness sometimes tilts to saccharine. The jaunty pep-talk “Pedal Strong” can’t help but feel slightly syrupy compared to the wide-eyed road songs of “The Sun is Going Down” or “Tracks.” Alongside the aforementioned “Corn Stalks,” the blooming chorus harmonies of “Come Back River,” are an immediate highlight, all of Wren’s traditional and new-age influence coming together in a gentle exhale. It’s when she finds that complicated place between hope and heartache that her music takes flight. 

Pink Stone: Songs from Moose Lodge was released February 20, 2021.
Listen to it here