John Dufilho, I Remain, as Always, a Rabble Rouser from the Mountains

I had high hopes for this, based on what I’ve heard in the past from John Dufilho’s full-time band, the Deathray Davies, but despite the decent songwriting, his solo debut, I Remain, as Always, a Rabble Rouser from the Mountains, is a bit of a letdown. The tone throughout is low-key, which is fine, but what I like about the Davies is that frantic, gleeful abandon with which they attack a song — see “Plan to Stay Awake,” off of The Kick and the Snare, to see what I’m talking about. They’re one of the few bands that can match the joyful noise of power-pop heroes Too Much Joy at their best, and that’s saying something.

Here, though, Dufilho seems to revel in his bedroom melancholia, striking a pose not too far removed from the likes of Elliott Smith or maybe Badly Drawn Boy. The songs amble along at a middling pace at best, and the “down”-sounding vocals suck the life out of all but a couple of the tracks. It’s almost like Dufilho makes his mission statement with the first track, the bleakly minimal “I’m Gonna Stay Under These Covers Today,” and then follows it to the letter, not leaving the bedroom ’til the tape stops running. I guess I can’t say I wasn’t warned, but it’s still a little disappointing to be missing the fire the Davies throw off.

More suspect, however, are the bits of 4-track screwing-around scattered across the disc. “The Bridge of Stolen Bicycles” is a fine, brief imitation of Blade Runner-/M83-ish electronic ambience, true, but is it really serving any purpose here, other than to derail the pop-rock train established by the previous track, “My Circuits Are Blown”? “I Can Be Nothing But Trouble” is the worst example of this — all it is is a multitracked voice repeating the song title over muted electronic drums — and it kills any momentum that might’ve been created between the David Garza-sounding “When Madness Strikes Again” and the catchy “Check the Engine.”

The latter’s one of the better tracks on here, by the way. There’s also “What Are You Waiting For?,” which has nicely fuzzed Superdrag guitars, “Paper Hats and Campfire Hands,” which is surprisingly sweet and buoyant, and “I’m Outside,” which is practically a Weezer B-side (albeit better than most of what R. Cuomo’s come up with lately). That’s the problem: there are good songs nestled deep within I Remain, but the wan Elliott Smith-isms and “ooh-I-just-bought-a-4-track!” experiments make ’em hard to find.

If it sounds like I’m being harsher than is warranted, yeah, I probably am. The thing is, John Dufilho’s such an all-round good songwriter that I tend to expect more from him; if this were somebody I’d never heard of, hell, it’d be pretty decent. When you know the guy’s capable of better, though… You don’t congratulate somebody on coming in 31st in a marathon when you know they could easily come in fourth or fifth, do you? Same deal here. I guess it’s a matter of doing what my real-job boss calls “managing expectations.” Me, I’ll be rocking out to Dufilho’s full-time gig, instead, and waiting to see if, with all the junk now out of the way, he can bring the real deal next time out.