Dan Mangan: Nice, Nice, Very Nice

Just one look at the title and album cover of Dan Mangan's newest long-player is enough to put a listener off before even hitting the play button.

Cliché front-image, silly, pointless alterations to said image (a frog earring, really?) and a record title quite literally pulled from a hat; you couldn't make a more aesthetically displeasing first impression if you tried.

It came as quite a shock, then, when we found out that the solo, twenty-six year old Canadian musician isn't actually that bad. 

At it's core, it's indie-folk-pop but it often covers it's bones in a mixture of light-rock, experimental appeal and the odd lick of cheese, spreading it's wings in complimentary surroundings but never truly straying from the path. He follows Damien Rice's path at times, making use of delicate arrangements and his overpowering voice. You Silly Git punctuates the previous statement with lightly plucked strings and a steadily building percussion-led rhythm. It never really bursts out of it's reserved shell but it manages to entertain nonetheless. 

His spirit is definitely in it and you can tell he's obviously an inventive musician, utilising decent breaks throughout but knowing when to stop musically. Saying that, there's an ever present sense of emptiness surrounding the LP, tainting the otherwise enjoyably light atmosphere. Introductory song Road Regrets is a definite highlight of the LP and brims with confidence, kicking things off in a positive manner with a decent rhythm and intelligent musicality. Surprisingly, it's got hints of something The Fray could've made if they were actually half-decent and knew how to play slightly alternative melodies (which still isn't exactly a compliment to Mr Mangan) but the slick, changing pulse and gallop of the song makes up for it.

There's definitely a handful of tracks that impress on the CD but the frustrating thing is it's often surrounded by unneeded, cliché mediocrity. Robots is a dispensable, annoying attempt at whimsical folk that fails to lift spirits and instead falls way below expectations. A simple metaphor of 'robot / human' nonsense and an annoying final stretch; "Robots need love too, they want to be loved by you" entwine to form possibly the worst song on the record.

The album could be so much more than what it is, throwing genuinely intriguing lyricism and melody against boring, uninspired, over-trodden territory that holds all the superior music back from it's potential. It's one thing to dislike one or two song but to have to skip through several tracks on a record again and again just to fully enjoy it is a completely different story.

If you can stomach the muddled, uncomfortable journey through a world filled with uneven terrain, then there is admittedly a few grand sights to behold; it's just a shame it's so hard to appreciate with all the jolting around.