You can glean so much from the words Heather McEntire uses: a litany of Southern locales, the lexicon of an avid reader and the sort of lovely but impenetrable poetry that hints at the years she spent trying to hide herself from the ones she loves. For all that, the words that surface most on Mount Moriah’s second full-length, Miracle Temple (Merge), are “light” and “dark,” and the stakes are higher than a holy war. “I’ve seen the darkness take you down with it, Mama,” McEntire sings on “Miracle Temple Holiness,” her quavery twang soaring above a melancholy flight of guitars and violins. Whether she’s battling her Southern Baptist mother, the pretty girls who haunt her thoughts or something in herself, she’s got the high ground.
Tue., March 26, 8 p.m., $10, with Blessed Feathers and Edison, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 215-739-9684, johnnybrendas.com.
