Canada’s Daniel Romano is neither an outlaw nor a good ol’ boy, a bro nor a balladeer. He's made power pop and indie rock, but since going solo in 2010 he's been making his twist on classic country. He might not be tearing up the Stateside country charts, but his new Mosey still makes for a solid entry in the new-school canon of hybrid country. Rather, Romano’s fifth full-length under his own name finds him relying on classic flourishes to build simple songs that look to the great beyond.
For the duration of its dozen songs, Mosey is married to the aesthetics of a forgotten B-movie about the wild West. Romano’s voice sounds weary, the guitars are all a little fried, and mariachi-style brass seals the deal. Psychedelia seeps in, too, for a hazy fever-dream finish. The resulting LP sounds like a dusty, abandoned postcard, a yellowed “wish you were here!” that curls at the corners.
“Valerie Leon” gets the record off to a scorching start, in which Romano races through a near-breathless yarn about a forbidden love that becomes a different sort of disaster—getting what you want doesn’t always yield the best results, it seems. But the bright chorus enlivens the song and makes it sound like a wry joke of sorts. Romano offers an intense triple stack of loneliness toward the middle of the record: “One Hundred Regrets Avenue” sounds hopeless, thanks in part to Romano’s off-kilter piano lines, while “I’m Alone Now” and “Sorrow (For Leonard and William)” trade in melancholy malaise even as they swing and shuffle.
Mosey isn’t all gloom, though it boasts plenty of excellent bummer songs. “Toulouse” is a cheeky, slinky number that finds Rachel McAdams adding wobbly hound-dog “woo”s and breathy lines in French, and “Hunger Is a Dream You Die In” is beguiling in its measured patter. There, Romano sounds barely patient as he contemplates growth and solitude: “Somethin’ in you’s not the same, when there’s no one to share your pain.” Mosey speaks to restless, if uncertain, ambition: you know you need to go, but you’re not sure where or how to get there.
