Sweet Disarray
At age 18, Dan Croll moved from Staffordshire, England, to Liverpool to attend the Paul McCartney–founded Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, where he won the national Songwriter of the Year award presented by the Musicians Benevolent Fund. This led to a recording contract, several singles, and finally this long-awaited debut album, *Sweet Disarray*. Traces of McCartney can be heard in the melody and the adventurous pop textures of “Thinkin Aboutchu,” where a roller-rink organ gets tossed among the assorted beats. “Wanna Know” throws a bizarre falsetto vocal performance into the chorus. Polyrhythms work their way through “Compliment Your Soul.” The productions, in general, are extremely fussy. Whether this improves or distracts from the songs depends on one’s preferences. (An XTC fan would likely be enthralled.) It disrupts the flow of “Only Ghost” but adds heavenly atmospherics to the title track, “Maway,” and “Must Be Leaving.” As a young man, Croll indulges his whims. Where these impulses take him from here should prove interesting.
Croll's much anticipated debut sadly sounds like one that was left incubating a little too long.
Arriving nearly two years after his punchy first single, "From Nowhere," Liverpool song man Dan Croll finally launches his colorful and immaculately produced debut album, Sweet Disarray.
Hating Dan Croll isn't easy. The English troubadour's music is as inoffensive as it gets—like Grizzly Bear, without the grizzle or the bear. For some, such safety will instantly prove a turn-off. But safe is exactly what Dan Croll is, and you suspect he
Album review: Dan Croll - 'Sweet Disarray'. "Would be an unremarkable singer-songwriter album were it not for smatterings of electronica, soul and Afrobeat throughout."
Review of "Sweet Disarray" by Dan Croll. The LP is out March 11 on Turn First Records. The first single off the LP is "Home". Dan Croll plays 3/11 in London
Liverpudlian Dan Croll's sound falls into some kind of quirky nether-genre between the Zutons, Metronomy and Jack Johnson, writes <strong>Caroline Sullivan</strong>