Orion Walsh began attracting attention in 2002 as the lead singer of Slow Coming Day, a melodic alternative-rock band signed to Tooth & Nail Records. The label meant the band was branded “CCM” even though its songs contained few clues as to the members’ spiritual pedigree. When the group vanished from the radar in 2004, so did Walsh.

But he resurfaced in 2008 as an acoustic-guitar-strumming, harmonica-blowing folk singer-songwriter of uncommonly in-your-face candor. About his pedigree this time there’d be no question.

“I first asked Christ into my heart when I was a young boy,” Walsh told me, “but after a long period of backsliding in my 20s, I decided to recommit my life to Christ.”

He was rebaptized in 2012. That same year he released his fourth solo effort, First by Water Then by Fire. He has since released three more. The latest, appropriately titled 7 (and available for $7 at Bandcamp), finds Walsh diversifying his sonic portfolio with slower tempos and subtle instrumental embellishments.

His lyrics, however, remain direct, plain-spoken, and grounded in his favorite topics: the demands and rewards of wanderlust (“Planes, Trains, Automobiles,” “The Journey Is Beautiful”), the mendacity of the media and the military-industrial complex (“No More”), and the relevance and truth of Scripture. “Love Is 7” paraphrases 1 Corinthians Chapter 13. “Journey of a Spruce Tree Part 2” takes its refrain from James 2:20.

James’ equation of genuine faith with just treatment of one’s neighbors permeates Walsh’s worldview. On 7, “Standing Bear’s Song” adds mistreatment of Native Americans to the roll call of national transgressions (the waging of unjust wars, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) that Walsh has decried in song.

That such sentiments are often associated with the political left doesn’t bother Walsh. “I personally do not like to be put in categories with political beliefs,” he said. “I think anything that is based in love is of God, and anything that is based in hate I am not interested in. It’s very simple what we are called to do: love others and love God.”

As for Walsh’s wanderlust vignettes, they’re based on his experiences of performing for his growing European audience. In March, he’ll play Finland for the first time.

“Traveling to other countries,” he said, “has really opened my thinking and heart to the fact that, no matter where you live, human beings are very similar.”

Lyrical sister

Maggie Roche, the eldest of the three sisters who from 1979 to 2007 performed as The Roches, died in January at age 65. Often categorized as “folk” because of their predominantly acoustic instrumentation, deadpan humor, and intricate vocal harmonies (Maggie was the contralto), The Roches nevertheless avoided traditional material and were generally marketed as a pop act.

Alone or in collaboration, Maggie composed over a third of The Roches’ material and nearly all of Seductive Reasoning, the album she and her sister Terre recorded for Columbia Records in 1975. Ignored at the time, it’s now regarded as one of the stronger Roche-family efforts.

The trio’s sales declined in the ’90s, but Maggie’s skills didn’t. Her song “My Winter Coat,” which concludes The Roches’ 1995 album Can We Go Home Now, spreads 33 meticulously descriptive coat-centric couplets over eight minutes without overstaying its welcome or turning into a joke. The longer it goes, the more serious it gets. The more serious it gets, the longer you want it to last.

“No ideas but in things,” wrote William Carlos Williams about crafting verse. Maggie Roche knew exactly what he meant. —A.O.