While balancing work and family commitments, singer-songwriter Dave Morrison has played gigs sporadically in and around his home in L.A. for more than twenty years, garnering a small but faithful following in the process.
One of his fans is Mark Humphreys of Trough Records who produced and helped him cherry pick the 14 songs for this album.
It is such an assured collection that it comes as a surprise to learn that it is actually Morrison's first official album. He did apparently self release a collection (’A Flash of Green’) in the nineties but this ended up lost without trace. There's no risk of this happening twice over.
Morrison's voice has a natural quality not unlike Mountain Goat John Darnielle. The songs may be more conventional, and more country orientated, than Darnielle's but they just as honest and true.
What makes the songs work is the precision of the language. Morrison sings "I'm no good with words" ('Falling Down') but this is false modesty as his songs show a gift for storytelling through characters that are fleshed out by a keen eye for small yet poignant details.
Take, for example, the stories of two lost souls in 'Precious One' .She is returning home to her cat and bills; he is sitting in his freezing cold car in a church car park. Both are wondering what their future holds and whether they are destined to remain lonesome into their old age. The song ends with a chance encounter in a scenario presented so simply and vividly that it manages to be both corny and touching at the same time.
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The passing of time is a key theme of the album, with reflections on past loves, future hopes and what it means to reach middle age. This is most obvious in 'Once,Myself', a first person vignette of a man returning to a beach town remembered from 20 years previous, watching kids partying and having fun in the sea and musing "I was alive like that once, myself".
The tone here, and on other songs, is wistful but never self pitying. As Morrison sings on 'Quartsize', the flesh may be getting weak but the spirit is still more than willing.
This optimistic philosophy is neatly summarised through great lines on the closing track ('Good Times Are Coming') :
"Curiosity is wonder. And wonder is the feather in your cap. I lost mine years ago, but somehow I got it back".
The songs on this fine album are about finding a sense of purpose and meaning, written from the perspective of a life lived rather than just imagined.
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