Just minutes into his new album, Andrew Peterson offers a pointed query: "Have you wondered how He loves you/If He really knows how dark you are inside?" It’s a weighty question, of course, but that real-world tone is what helps set Clear to Venus, his second major label album, on a plane above the everyday.

Indeed, Peterson’s music treads the path of a long line of earthy folk singer/songwriters. As on Carried Along, his critically acclaimed debut, this new collection revolves around sparkling acoustic guitars, hammered dulcimer and spare, workmanlike arrangements. Yet, Venus is both a descendent and an evolution, with Peterson sounding more confident and, dare we sa

"No More Faith," which holds the aforementioned pointed lyric, boasts flavorful chord changes and a sing-along chorus as it tells of wrestling with faith until the day believers see God face to face. "Loose Change," a brilliant story about a penny languishing in a fountain, features gospel-style backing vocals from Peterson’s wife, Jamie. And Jamie’s and multi-instrumentalist Gabe Scott’s vocals blend nicely with Andrew’s in a cover of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s "Why Walk When You Can Fly." In fact, Scott, who tours with the Petersons, makes a marked contribution—he co-wrote two songs, including the music set to previously unpublished lyrics by the late Rich Mullins ("Mary Picked the Roses"), and his guitar lines are clear and precise.

With the Marshall Crenshaw-like "Hold Up My Arms" and bouncy James Taylor-esque "Isn’t It Love," Peterson shows more of his poppy side, but in a way that evokes the dignified approach of those classic songwriters. That kind of down-to-earth restraint makes Clear to Venus something of a Lone Ranger in the new millennium’s cookie-cutter pop climate, but one that’s welcome indeed.