"I'll paint my nails when it suits me / Breathtaking, isn't it, masculinity?" -lyric from Cissy's "Modern Man"

Employing a highly-visual lyrical panache and an atypically full-throated singing style, Barna’s newest record, Cissy, a gasping, rapid-fire deconstruction of what it means to be a man. If Bukowski was queer and wrote songs for Patti Smith, those songs might sound like this.

Camped out in 1809 Studios, a literal stone’s throw from the Erie Canal, Seán and producer/studio owner Dave Drago set out to make a record, start to finish, in a few days, later adding a collaboration from Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows.

Cissy is a measured, brutally observant deconstruction of masculinity, where the main players in the story – drag queens, mothers, queers, office workers, and wanderers – come together in the name of excess and anxiety. Barna plays both drums and guitar on Cissy, but it is his rare poetic bravado and stream-of-consciousness vocal delivery – theatrical and pained but grounded and honest – that guides us, shines a light on our traumas, and invites us in for a drink.

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