Divorce inspires one fiery album

Kathleen Edwards has always been a forthright and precise songwriter, creating folk-rock songs with concrete stories and clear emotions. But the personal details embedded in her fourth album, the new Voyageur, threaten to obscure the songs themselves.

It's a breakup album, catalyzed by Edwards' divorce from collaborator Colin Cripps, and she produced it with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, her new boyfriend.

"Part of me can't help but wonder if there was not a press release or some kind of existing information that said I was married and now I'm not, or that this person is now my boyfriend, there would be a different interpretation of some of these songs," she says from her Toronto home on the eve of a tour that brings her to the World Cafe Live on Wednesday.

But songs such as "House Full of Empty Rooms" and "Going to Hell" clearly recount a deep relationship gone deeply wrong, and "Pink Champagne" and "For the Record" depict destructive behaviors that resulted. "I hide behind the songs I write," she sings in "Chameleon / Comedian," and she says there's an even "harsher, rawer, and more vulnerable backstory" to many of the well-crafted songs.

"The good thing, I guess, is that maybe writing those songs helped me work through what's festering that led me to that place. Maybe I'm just looking for closure. It's very self-involved and selfish and narcissistic, really," Edwards says with a self-deprecating laugh.

Voyageur isn't a quiet, depressing album, however, nor does it sound narcissistic. Edwards went into it eager to experiment, and her collaboration with Vernon produced her most sonically nuanced and varied work, from the bluesy rock of "Mint" to the layered, Bon Iver-like swoons of "A Soft Place to Land." Translating those lush arrangements to her five-piece touring band presented new, exciting challenges, too, but those were challenges that Vernon didn't help solve.

"Justin's been a terrible, terrible source of help because [for his tour] he just hired a nine-piece band and some of the most exceptional woodwind and brass players in the country, so he is the worst influence. I'm like, I want that too! And then I looked at my bank account and said, nope, that's not going to happen," Edwards says.

Voyageur is about an ending, but it's also a new beginning. It's a record about "the experience of hitting an impasse in your life and trying to figure out where you're going next," she says. But the album itself, with its broad sonic palette, is a step forward.

"There's something so incredibly rewarding about putting a little fire under your pants and seeing how far you can make yourself run," Edwards says. "And that's kind of what this record feels like, and that's kind of what this tour feels like. I'm terrified and excited and feel really lucky that I feel passionate about something."