Every Lennon has a McCartney, and vice versa. In the case of the defunct local roots-rock group Bad Mayo, there was Dave Stover, ironically the bassist and the less cynical one, played off of by pianist and resident ironic party-boy Greg Schatz. Schatz and Stover have gone on to do a million things since breaking up that crew but they’re almost always inseparable, if liner notes are to believed, and every time Schatz makes another album about being a comic drunk, Stover seems to come up right behind him with tales of the more serious Day After.

Stover’s latest project features a backing band called the Voormen but the cast of characters, including Schatz on piano, hasn’t changed much. The new incarnation is most notable for being more rock and less roots than usual, and also for the introduction of new singer Martin Turlington, a Memphis punk vet whose pained twang is nevertheless a better fit for these dour songs of regret than Stover himself. Turlington has a real ragged and almost offhand approach that belies both his own obvious personal demons and an occasional killer near-falsetto. The Voormen skulk through the dark back alleys of the soul for about half an hour, a world of old flames and trashcan fires and slow suicides broken up only by the incongruous closer, “Heavy Hell,” a sly party anthem that seems more fitting for his longtime partner in crime. Maybe they’re getting ready to become a singularity again?