First Impressions: Metamorphosis by Holly Palmer

For decades, there’s been an effort by the tech savvy to strip away the accoutrements of beloved tracks and present the lead vocals unadorned. They excise the instrumental bed and harmonies, leaving just the singer and song. They’re intriguing creations, no doubt about it, and have become perfect fodder for social media, where a plethora of pop-culture pundits purport to know more than they do. They push ‘em to egg engagement and, in turn, short attention-span fans respond, each pontificating about the wondrous or awful nature of the isolated voice. Who knew Marvin Gaye possessed such a gorgeous voice? Or that Bob Dylan was no Harry Belafonte?! (Yes, I’m being facetious.)

Lead vocals aren’t the be-all, end-all, of most songs—that’s what I’m driving at. They’re one piece—an important one, to be sure—of a much larger sonic puzzle. I’m thinking of the Beach Boys at the moment, in part due to having watched a bunch of documentaries about them since the passing of Brian Wilson in June. Waves of oft-wordless harmonies splash to shore in many of their songs, almost always serving as a warm counterpoint to Mike Love’s nasally tone. The same’s essentially true for other groups past and present, from the Turtles to the Staves to [fill in the blank]. Backing vocals add both color and meaning.

But what becomes a song when the singer’s (hopefully) dulcet timbre conveys nonsensical lyrics? In truth, it’s often (but not always) less about the words and more about the passion. Over on Bluesky, for example, Michael Stipe recently said this of the non-decipherable R.E.M. words from Chronic Town, Murmur, and Reckoning: “Just form vowels and mean it.” Not every song requires Paul Simon-level poetic musings, after all. To borrow a line from Little Richard, “A wop bop a loo bop, a lop bom bom!”

Holly Palmer’s Metamorphosis contains a wealth of wordless vocals and infectious melodies, the result of a collaboration with producer/multi-instrumentalist Pete Min and a bevy of studio greats that include Mark Guiliana and Tim Lefebvre, who backed David Bowie on Blackstar. As I said last month about “Requiem for a Dream,” the lead single, it’s “somewhat akin to how an Andy Warhol painting would sound if, indeed, paintings could sing.” On the one hand, it’s pop art set to song, light, bright and even brash; on the other, it evokes the weighty emotions many of us can’t quite articulate. Though stylistically different, it reminds me of the wordless treatises found on David Crosby’s magnum opus, If I Could Only Remember My Name, as well as the opening volley from Crosby-Nash’s “Wind on the Water”—but as sung by the retro-styled Puppini Sisters.

The 10-track set opens with “How It Started,” a poppy tune that glides into jazz thanks to the depth of Palmer’s layered vocals as well as Min’s studio acumen. As with the other tunes, it came about from improvisation and experimentation; and, at least to my ears, captures the tight yet expansive nature of time. In fact, as the album develops, it conjures Van Morrison’s metaphysical excursions of the 1980s—and not just due to Daniel Rotem’s saxophone, which flowers on the second half. That sums up the album, I think; it conveys the inarticulate speech of the heart. Palmer’s wordless vocals drift in on the ether as if clouds in the sky, wafting along with guitar(s), bass, synths and drums, and etch themselves into the fabric of the soul. It’s the sound of the unconscious mind spilling into awareness.

The press release quotes Palmer, whose credits include working with Allee Willis and singing backup for David Bowie and Gnarls Barkley, as explaining, “Metamorphosis is an album about turning into the thing, the person, the force, the energy that you’ve been headed for all along. I thought my life was headed in one direction and at a certain point, everything shifted and took on a different shape. That’s the ‘metamorphosis’ that this album embodies. That’s the ‘metamorphosis’ that this album is singing about.”

I first played Metamorphosis, which is due out this Friday, just over a month ago; it’s been in heavy rotation since. The tracks play out as movements in an avant-garde symphony, with each section playing into and off of those that precede and follow it. I won’t lie and say it’s for everyone; it’s definitely not. But for those who enjoy sounds that replicate the dream state, there’s much here to like and love; it’s both pop art and jazz, bright and vibrant, light and sumptuous, and more, somewhat the inverse of what I expounded upon up top—the soulful backing tracks that need not a lead vocal to impart emotions and meaning.