Oh Fortune is Canadian crooner Dan Mangan’s third LP and while he has been garnering high praise in his native country, picking up a Polaris Music Prize nomination for his sophomore effort Nice, Nice, Very Nice, he remains relatively unknown on our shores. It’s surprising really considering how we have embraced acts like Mumford and Sons, Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Laura Marling and such like. Sadly, with Oh Fortune being released too late in the year to make it on to the bigger albums of the year lists it is unlikely that this offering will catapult him further in to public consciousness, which is a shame as he’s made a cracker of an album.
From the opening building intro of piano, strings and distortion into a wonderfully bouncing string refrain of ‘About As Helpful as You Can Be Without Being Any Help At All’ you know you’re in for a treat. It’s reminiscent in a way of Ra Ra Riot with their string arrangements but Mangan has a rawness to his voice that really suits the genre and elevates the songs above many of those of his contemporaries. ‘How Darwinian’ is a slow burner with Mangan observing that ‘people don’t know what they want, they just know they really want it’. On the slower tracks such as ‘I Am Dead’, ‘Daffodils’ and ‘Leaves, Trees, Forest’ he creates beautiful melodies that make you want to just get lost in the music, with softly plucked acoustic guitar strings and gentle drum beats.
That’s not to say that he can’t change gears and take it up a few notches. ‘Post War Blues’ is a rousing anthem that puts Mangan firmly in Mumford and Sons territory with its rolling drum beat sweeping it along, while ‘Row of Houses’ injects a scuzzly electric guitar riff and sinks to gentle lows before rising to euphoric highs. Then there is ‘Starts With Them Ends With Us’, which kicks things off with a stirring drum beat before descending in to a lovely folk ballad and then bursts back in to life for the finale. Final track on the album ‘Jeopardy’ sees Mangan in a reflective mood as he wonders ‘what happens when all flags burn together? Is that unity? Is that unity? Is it meaningful to be angry?’. The song ends on a lovely brass outro with trumpets at the forefront. More songs should have trumpets on them.
It’s a shame that this release has come slightly too late in the year for the end of year lists as it would surely have found itself on a good deal of them. While we may be idolising the likes of Mumford and Sons and Bon Iver, Mangan has been working away for nearly a decade and it’s about time that he started to receive the kind of recognition that he deserves.
