Julie Doiron sounds happy. Summer’s here, she’s on the road, and she’s just enjoyed a country breakfast at the Brucefield, Ontario, farm owned by rhythm-section siblings Jay and Jesse Baird’s parents. She’s also still buzzing from the show she played the night before in the nearby village of Bayfield, which proved that you don’t really need a big-city crowd to make thrilling rock ’n’ roll.

“It was a wonderful night—one of those nights where they really don’t want you to stop, ever,” she reports. “So we played a long time, but it was really fun.”

Adding to the pleasure is the fact that she’s also touring with relatively new boyfriend Fred Squire, who’s handling lead-guitar duties on the road but who also drums on most of Doiron’s latest release, I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day. A long, sweet love song to Squire, the new disc is also a paean to small-town life, to the joys of motherhood, and even to her ex-husband. (It seems to have been an amicable split.) What it isn’t is gloomy, introverted singer-songwriter fare; indeed, it seems to be a riposte of sorts to those who have pegged Doiron as a fragile soul ever since the demise of her former band, dream-punk quartet Eric’s Trip, in 1996.

“People just assumed I was really, really quiet, because I was doing a lot of solo shows—out of necessity, because I couldn’t afford to bring a band,” the singer-guitarist explains. “But people are listening to this record and going, ”˜Wow, she’s so rockin’ now!’ But this return to rock has been happening for a couple of years, for me, anyway.”

The sonic exuberance evident on I Can Wonder is mated to lyrics that, with a few bittersweet exceptions, celebrate everyday pleasures: biking through the streets of a familiar neighbourhood, sharing a big comfy bed, drinking beer in a friendly tavern. Many are set in Sackville, New Brunswick, where Squire lives, and Doiron makes no secret of her affection for this rustic college town.

“Sackville is quite amazing,” she enthuses. “Not everybody could handle living in that town, but I love everything about it. I like just being able to bike for 10 minutes and being in the farm fields with all the animals, and being able to bike to the lake, and doing all the things like that and realizing, ”˜This is what I get to do every day.’ And wow, that’s pretty good!”

She laughs, fully aware that she doesn’t sound anything like your typical alienated post-grunge rocker. But if such songs as “The Life of Dreams”, “Nice to Come Home”, and “Glad to Be Alive” are universally upbeat, they’re also an honest reflection of how Doiron has been feeling ever since she decided to let go of some of the things that were causing her pain.

“I realized one day that I needed to be grateful for everything that’s around me, and appreciative of everyone that’s in my life, and how hard we all work, and how much we all love each other, and how I’m really lucky,” she says. “So this album almost came out of waking up one day and realizing that, and then going from there.”

Julie Doiron plays the Biltmore Cabaret on Sunday (June 14).