Spirituality: the experience or relationship with the empowering source of ultimate value, purpose and meaning of human life producing healing and hope, and is articulated in diverse beliefs and practices of individuals and communities.

Spirituality, as defined above, is not a common trait to the world of indie rock, which often seeks solace in irony and apathy as much as it does in preaching and overcooked melodrama. It's refreshing, then, to hear the articulate musings of C'mon Miracle, Mirah Zietlyn's third album for K records.

While the lyrical themes of C'mon Miracle - a set of ruminations on relationships past and present - are touchstones of the singer-songwriter idiom, in Mirah's hands they gain a renewed emotional lease-on-life, as if all that was needed was an eloquent touch. She approaches her songs with a sense of empowerment and confidence, yet she never oversells her songs, singing in a voice that is sweetly sighing and full of yearning. While her music still remains an expansive brand of rural indie folk-pop, the lyrics now center on the more spiritual: the experience of "coming home" to oneself as well as the strengthening of bonds with others. Indeed, even those who found the girly and cutesy moments of Mirah's first two albums a bit too cloying will note that she is more womanly, mature, and focused on this record.

Musically, there are many interesting elements evident beyond the obvious lyrical themes. For all the praise Phil Elvrum gets for his band The Microphones, it is becoming increasingly clear his real strength lies in his production. This is the third Mirah album he has produced, and he has given each of them a spacious and vast sound that synthesizes the electronic with the rustic. It is a seemingly simple idea that works wonders on tracks like the unadorned piano ballad "Promise to Me", and "Look Up", which blazes along at the speed of punk yet retains the soft focus of shoegazing. Even if Elvrum is keeping the arrangements relatively sparse overall, with Mirah's voice and acoustic guitar upfront, what really impresses while the album is playing is the way he weaves all the other instruments in and out (for example, the sudden entrance of a reverberated xylophone on "The Struggle").

Although there are some definite highlights, C'mon Miracle doesn't bowl you over with individual songs. The overall consistency and singularity of each of the eleven selections give the album its subtle emotional wallop. While there is nothing as bombastically thrilling as Advisory Committee's "Cold Cold Water" (perhaps Mirah's signature song) C'mon Miracle has its own centerpiece in "We're Both So Sorry", a bittersweet tale of Mirah and her ex coming to terms with the fact that their courtship could've been so much more substantial, if they'd only put the effort into it. Already a staple of her live set for a year, the song has been rearranged as a multi-section mini epic in the studio, with an intriguing quasi-fugue section consisting of Mirah overlaying her vocals with some slightly arrhythmic whispering. Another album highlight is "Don't Die In Me", which relates a breakup to two continents being divided, free of responsibility and without "the weight of being whole". Over a lovely folky melody, Mirah struggles to keep a positive image of her former lover in her head even as he/she becomes publicly cold, cynical, and even vain.

Even if they are two of the oldest (and most universal) themes in life, Mirah's urgent drive for love and compassion does help resurrect some tasty lyrical fodder on the subject, if at the expense of conjuring up some unfortunate tree-hugging images. In the liner notes, Mirah proclaims "all the love in my heart to my friends and family who make my life possible". There is also a picture in the liners of her forearm with the word "Love" written on it. Yet as cheeseball and hippy-dippy as all this seems, lyrics such as "Jerusalem, you know that its not right, after all you've been through, you should know better, then to become the wicked ones almighty God once saved you from" ("Jerusalem") and "With the ramparts built so high, all the soldiers stuck inside, but this will fall away with time, if you promise to be kind" ("Promise To Me") speak clearly and almost profoundly of how far the simple concept of kindness and not biting the hands that feed you can go in the means of war and peace as well as in personal relationships. This idea also comes up during "The Light", which features the key stanza:

"When the end shines from the day, all the hate and all the hell that history has released will tremble before your valor, if you'd just get down on your knees, and promise to all your children true that you will live in peace"

It's a rather heavy-handed statement of how influential one person can be, yet it is sung so sweetly and sincerely, without the slightest sense of inflation, that it resonates long and deep.

Another seemingly clichéd theme that pops up on C'mon Miracle is the idea of living in the moment and making the most of your time on Earth. Yet Mirah's dissection of it on "You've Been Away Too Long" provides the well-worn saying with a fresh pair of sneakers to run in:

"If the light takes you in, will you know where you've been all this time? / At the edge of a cliff you could almost just slip down the side / When there's so much to do, don't you wish you could make up your mind? / But it knows it's illusion / It grows and it burns you inside"

The frustration that goes along with trying to accomplish all we want to do in life is something that most people can relate to. And yes, this quite a far cry from the primitive shouts of "Carpe Diem, Baby!" you might hear during a frat party.

A strong contender for the best indie singer-songwriter album of the year, as well as a jewel in the crown of the often spotty K records, C'mon Miracle shows how much friends, family, lovers, and music can empower us with a sense of healing, hope, and love, and how far this empowerment can take us on our desired paths in life. With some luck, it will surface through the crest of the indie/folk wave. Surf's up!