Having already led a scene of roots-rock freaks and collaborated with everyone in town but Morgus, setting famous poems to music is apparently the only direction left for Dave Stover to travel. Everyone from Poe to Robert Herrick gets the Stover treatment on this latest, nine-track solo CD. You may be lulled into a false sense of security by the opener, “Stars Keep Shiftin,” which is Stover’s best batch yet of spooky, art-pop Americana, but then Herrick’s “To The Virgins, To Make Much Of Time” careens out of the dark, recast as a Cajun waltz, and here we go.

As usual, Stover’s reach slightly exceeds his grasp, but intentionally, as if Dave was curious as to what he could get away with. William Oldys’ “On a Fly drinking out of his Cup” may be a kindred spirit to Stover’s usual shaggy-dog drinking songs, but the language is still too ripe to fit the breezy Dylanscape it’s trapped in. Savoyards with a social life will appreciate “Ko Ko’s Song” recast as a country honk, however, and Poe’s “Alone” makes for interesting coffeehouse conversation — is Tim Robertson’s guitar mocking Edgar’s pain, or celebrating it? In the end, Via Deluna doesn’t quite hold together as a concept, especially since the swimmingly cool 11-minute medley “Rabid Narcissistic / Via Deluna” (Stover’s own “Street Hassle”?) serves as its centerpiece. But as yet another door from which to enter Dave’s dilapidated house party, it’s welcome.