If you’re wondering what Daniel Romano is up to on his latest release, Mosey, don’t look to him for help. Some artists make videos to help explain what’s going on in their works, but Romano seems to believe in the theory of confusement. For “Valerie Leon,” Romano seems to want to be obtuse both visually and aurallly, getting so tongue-tied spitting out the lyrics at a frenetic pace over the top of a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western soundtrack that they melt in to a series of la-la- la’s at the end of each verse. The video starts with footage of ’50’s pinup girl Bettie Page strutting awkwardly, switches to an exotic dancer/contortionist doing some painful looking posing, then clips of a couple of scantily clad ’50’s bimbos wiggling their assets flicker by before closing with an amateurish attempt at flamingo by a spectacularly ugly couple. The words “Housefly’s Nemesis” are superimposed over his image at the end, followed by “A message from the industry to you.”
Things don’t get much clearer on “Gone Is All But A Quarry Of Stone.” Clad in a hideous tracksuit that looks like it was heisted by some ’70s era Mafia wanna-be when it fell off a truck, Romano warbles a mash-up of Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan impersonations while yet another under-dressed bimbo does cartwheels behind him in a junkyard, ending up with her legs wrapped around his neck as Romano gazes sullenly into the lens.
All this apparently comes from his self-proclaimed peerage as the King of Mosey, whatever the hell that means. He seems to have taken that concept literally here, just rambling all over the place. His previous releases, 2010’s Workin’ for the Music Man, 2011’s Sleep Beneath the Willow, and ’13s Come Cry With Me had him resplendent in sparkly Nudie suits doing old school country. But Romano apparently came down with a dose of what-the-hell for this outing and let ‘er rip. It’s gotten a pop rock label slapped on it by critics, but going that way only causes more head-scratching.
Things start to get interesting with “I’m Alone Now,” Romano sounding like Dylan doing swamp pop.
“I Had To Hide Your Poem In A Song” conjures up a vision of Willie Nelson on ‘shrooms, the old outlaw tripping the light fantastic, fingers dancing across the strings of his holy old Martin.
“Sorrow” could be the music playing from a saloon in a B movie Western while some crusty, tobacco-stained mustache with a tin star on his chest is waiting in the dusty streets of some God-forsaken cow town for the bad guy to slide into town on the noon train so’s he can blow bloody chunks of him all over the screen.
Whatever Romano is doing here, it’s a hard sell for fans of his old sound. It’s gonna take some getting used to-or not.
