“Ultimately, these songs are about spirituality and trying to find your place in the world,” Griffin House says of Flying Upside Down (Nettwerk, April 29), an album that dramatically marks the 27-year-old Ohioan’s coming of age as an artist of formidable skills. “Specifically, it’s the continuing story of what’s happening in my life, following the realization that the more specific I am about my own life and things that have happened to me, the more people will feel it universally.”

The 13-track collection, filled with intensely personal, richly detailed vignettes of the highs and lows of House’s existence, showcases a young artist whose openly emotional singing, poetic lyrics and spiraling melodies recall Jackson Browne circa Late for the Sky. Embedded in Flying Upside Down is a song cycle chronicling the arc of a relationship, from the first kiss (“Let Me In”) to the emotionally lacerating moment of truth (“Heart of Stone”) and its anguished aftermath (the title song). These psychologically penetrating songs are set against a backdrop of the lives of family members (“Better Than Love,” “Hangin’ On [Tom’s Song]”) and friends, including some serving in the Middle East (“I Remember [It’s Happening Again]”). Completing the tableau is a pair of spiky, head-clearing rockers (“One Thing,” “Good for You”).

“I love the rare feeling of people in a room being connected without having to share any ideology or belief system or style or walk of life or class or anything – where they can all just melt in to something magical,” says Charlie Mars. “I want to explore sonically what that is.”

Those keeping score will mark this as Charlie Mars’ fifth album, but upon first listen, Like A Bird, Like A Plane can best be described as a new debut.

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