Music Review // Del Roscoe "Black Hats"

 

From the moment it starts until the moment it ends, the song "Black Hats" will lure you in and take control of your focus.   This is done on purpose because the song has such a meaningful message that everyone needs to hear.   While you can take this a few different ways, even if you think about this as being from older times and the man described is a plague doctor, ultimately, the man in the black hat who is "coming for your town" is very much feeling like death.

The idea that this song is about the Grim Reaper also holds true in the lyrics: "His boney white finger pointing at you / He's telling his story that everyone's doomed".    The idea of the boney white finger makes me think of death in a physical form, but at the same time the notion that everyone is doomed makes me feel like a plague is upon this town and no one is going to survive,  But it is just as likely that this could be thought of in the sense that death does come for us all one day, so plague or not, no one is safe,

Del Roscoe have a rather unique sound that isn't easy to put into a genre.   They have acoustics and a lot of their sound just feels like storytelling the way someone would come out during a movie and narrate the plot.  In some ways this is a sea shanty-esque like My Druthers but it also carries some of the same underlying elements as Gogol Bordello and Flogging Molly, without being as punk.  As someone who can remember reviewing Flogging Molly without any point of comparison, Del Roscoe does feel a bit like that.

Ultimately between the sound and the lyrics there is a musical flow to this that can come out more than the words but you should still take this one to heart.  There is this idea of the man in the black hat coming to town and you should try to avoid him, to not be taken by him, and I think that's just a way of saying to try and hold off death for as long as you can, but at the same time remember that it will catch up with us all one day.  Del Roscoe feels like they really bring out the line here between not dyng and living, which is something we all need to be on the right side of.