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
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