Dan Mangan – Oh Fortune

With Oh Fortune – the follow up to 2009’s Nice, Nice, Very Nice which largely brought the Canadian singer songwriter to the attention of these shores and gained him a Polaris Prize nomination back home – Dan Mangan reveals a much grander, ambitious, and sonorous undertaking. Building upon the alt-folk foundations of its predecessor, songs like Starts With Them, Ends With Us and Post-War Blues then launch into brass fanfares that grate against rapturous guitars teasingly teetering on the edge of orchestral cacophony.

The sparse production is startling yet understated; the forlorn If I Am Dead segues into Daffodil, taking with it an established sense of longing, and flirts with the breathy distorted vocal sound of Sparklehorse. Mangan springs to and from these yearnings into tracks like the guitar heavy Rows Of Houses, placing each sentiment in an appropriate context whilst providing the record with an exciting dynamic that demands attention.