Dan Mangan + Blacksmith - Club Meds

Dan Mangan + Blacksmith

Club Meds

13 January 2015

Arts & Crafts

 

4 stars out of 5

 

 

I first encountered Dan Mangan in 2006, when he wrote a comment on my MySpace  wall regarding my own music. (If you’re under twenty-five you will probably have no idea what I just said.) Back then he was a singer-songwriter largely unknown outside of his native Vancouver, but he had begun to garner a following among the Canadian campus radio faithful with his first self-released CD, Postcards & Daydreaming. After that he signed to Arts & Crafts and began winning Junos. Over the last couple of records he’s accumulated a full band to record and tour with him, comprised primarily of Kenton Loewen on drums, Gord Grdina on guitar, and my old hometown friend John Walsh on bass.

 

Club Meds is an expansive, multi-textured record that sees Mangan pushing his songwriting into new, often very intricate and sombre places. While in no way goth, the music of Club Meds definitely recreates the melancholy of those weeks upon grey weeks of ceaseless Vancouver rain. Mangan’s vocals are more emotive than ever, especially on tracks like “XVI” and “Forgetery,” which sound somewhat like the January pages of the diary of a seasonal affective disorder sufferer. But Mangan’s world of melancholia is inclusive, not alienating: he’s set out tea for two, and is inviting you to come over and discuss your troubles with him on this rainy afternoon.

 

If you’re looking for another cute, light, indie folk tune like “Robots,” you’d be better off just queueing up Nice, Nice, Very Nice on your iTunes and reliving the past. Mangan certainly isn’t interested in revisiting his former incarnations with Club Meds. There’s nothing light or cute to be found here. Instead, Mangan has created his strongest suite of songs yet, ambitious without being pretentious, and insistent without being bombastic. Club Meds further solidifies Mangan’s status as one of Canada’s better singer-songwriters.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger