Kacy Crowley

Kacy Crowley

A cave can be a hollow in the earth or a verb: to yield, submit, surrender. Cave, Kacy Crowley's fourth disc, while definitely dark, sounds more like a resounding triumph, a fresh beginning instead of a burning loss. Once again she works with producer Billy Harvey, and, with the exception of the Tosca String Quartet on one track, he serves as a one-man backing band, providing a varied set of musical frames that surround Crowley's funky poetry and dusky moods. The Austin songstress points the way with the sun-streaked "Starting Over," a pop-ish ditty with a somber underside and telling lyric: "She got older, but no one told her it would feel like this – like you're starting over/at the end." Crowley displays her influences with a luminous take on Rickie Lee Jones' "The Last Chance Texaco." While she maintains some of Jones' shadowy vision, the pixie-ish singer-songwriter also possesses the ability to deliver the deceptive, upbeat title track, which is just one of the reasons Cave is one of the most intriguing local releases of the year.