Cindy Morgan looks a little different these days…and sounds a little different without the reverb, but simply hearing her name is enough to whisk you down memory lane. What were you doing in 1992 when you first heard Cindy’s power pop single “Real Life” off her debut disc of the same name? Probably tight-rolling your pants, but you remember her just the same.

In the five years since her last release, Elementary, Cindy has been busy raising her daughters, Olivia and Savannah, and writing up a storm, lending her bright mind to co-writing sessions with a broad spectrum of artists and songwriters. And oddly enough, Real Life could serve as a subtitle for her new offering, Postcards. That’s exactly what it is: slices of real life. And thank God, they’re not even packaged pretty. In the overpopulated contemporary Christian market, Postcards is the red-headed stepchild, a Christian record that doesn’t ooze spiritual sentiment or nudge us to live in our “happy place.”

For those of us with troubled parent-child relationships, it’s a tremendous relief to hear Cindy’s gut-wrenching ode on “Mother.” We’ve been waiting to find ourselves in the poetic wrath of a Christian song for years, and this is it: “Mother, we started off with a bang / it’s funny how quickly things change…Mother, your picture’s up there on the wall / Mother, it’s like I don’t know you at all…One day I love you, the next day I hate you / till we don’t talk anymore.”

Instead of milk and cookies, Postcards feels like a hearty loaf of thick rye bread, dark, flavorful and perfect with a little jam. That jam is the full-bodied country, folk and acoustic rock instrumentation that make the record as accessible to mainstream as Martina McBride. For example, “Oh What Love” is wrapped in the campfire twanging of a lap steel guitar, and “Postcards” is a jaunty piano piece that documents Morgan’s journey to herself even as she watches her life unravel. Don’t miss “Glory,” an unbearably beautiful portrait of angels rejoicing over a person “when you are made brand new.”

All in all, this is a record jam-packed with honesty. Her vocals are unfailingly eloquent because, as especially noticeable on the radio-worthy “Deep,” Morgan is one of those lucky artists with deep emotion built into the timbre of her voice. Sit in front of the fire with this record and “read” the songs. They’re the best postcards you’ll ever get.