Someone once said, maybe it was Ray Wylie Hubbard, that, “good poets didn’t have good childhoods.” I don’t know about her childhood, but Cashavelly Morrison has had her share of traumatic experiences and the emotional journey of acceptance is reflected in her new album, Metamorphosis. Morrison started her professional career as a dancer, but after a broken vertebrae she turned to writing, and songwriting. Encouraged by a friend’s father, none other than Kurt Vonnegut, she directed her artistic passion to the beginning of a novel, multiple screenplays, and music. Kind of a mix of indie noir, folk, and art rock, Metamorphosis drives an operatic intensity that’s hard to pull away from.
The record starts with The Crossing. It has an acoustic and electric guitar interplay that calls to mind Fleetwood Mac in their heyday. It’s also appropriate to invoke that band, and Stevie Nicks, when it comes to describing Morrison’s vocals. They are soaring, and airy, and lacy, dropping to a whisper and then punching through to take control again. On Wild that voice drifts between foreground and background, hard to pin down, in a tale of trying to recover a spirit long lost as civilization took over. Hounds has a nice haunting percussion line in a plea to the dogs who prey on society. The album finishes with Hieroglyphics, an appropriate ending with a reckoning that one has come to accept themselves and their past. The song starts in a lighter vein than many of the other pieces, but builds and builds until exploding cymbals draw the story to a close. You’re left exhausted and realizing Metamorphosis is not something you’ll soon forget.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.