Staff Reviews

Dan Mangan + Blacksmith - Club Meds

Review by Matt Langham

Club Meds feels like an Ansel Adams photograph»

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The follow up to 2011's highly acclaimed, award winning 'Oh Fortune' sees the Vancouver-based artist return after a few years out of the limelight, this time officially joining forces with his long-time -now integral- band members to play under the moniker Dan Mangan and Blacksmith. The name Blacksmith alludes to a craft that takes years to master and marks the start of a new era in Dan Mangan's work, where the band play a larger role than ever before and the result is their heaviest, most intricate and most fearless work to date. The album title, 'Club Meds', is a pun on one of the driving lyrical motions of the record; the idea that we're all on vacation from having to be honest with ourselves - that sometimes it's easier to medicate than deal with reality. In his home-country of Canada, Dan Mangan has grown up in the public eye since garnering attention with his 2009 record 'Nice, Nice, Very Nice'. Produced by Colin Stewart and Dan Mangan, 'Club Meds' now sees him step from the singer-songwriter bracket, into the Technicolor splendour of a full band with poise, self-confidence and a new found depth and complexity. Blacksmith is Kenton Loewen (drums), Gordon Grdina (guitar), John Walsh (bass) and often JP Carter (trumpet), Jesse Zubot (violin) and Tyson Naylor (keys). They bring an unmistakable character to 'Club Meds'; a stark glassy edge that swells and sways like a roaring ocean. Through a fog of analog feedback loops and synths, the band's performances breathe deeply and steadily like a dragon at rest.
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