Tag: Into The Wild

Bassist with Ocean Colour Scene and co-founder of the brilliant but seemingly short-lived Merrymouth, Dan Sealey has been writing, performing and recording as a solo artist for some time and is about to unleash his album, Beware Of Darkness. It’s almost impossible to pin a label on Dan’s music. Electro-acoustic, certainly, in the tradition of such singer/songwriters as Alan Hull and Gerry Rafferty without sounding anything like either of them but I hope you know what I mean – intelligent lyrics matched with strong melodies and arrangements that never go over the top but have power enough to carry the songs.

As it happens my favourite tracks are clustered towards the end of the album but I will be conventional and start at the beginning. The take-home message of the opener, ‘Looking Inward’, is that there is nothing to be scared of – a brave statement in these troubled times. It’s a bouncy tune with vaguely hippy overtones – unlocking your mind is a bit 60s. With ‘Yesterday Came’, Dan is moving forward with sweet harmonies of a Beatleish persuasion and a big arrangement.

‘Better Day’ is another pretty tune with some nice slide guitar and banjo courtesy of Jack Blackman, this time disguising a bitter tale of an unwanted child but with an overlying optimism. We’re all living for a better day. ‘Keep On Reading’ is not a plea for literacy but a bluesy song written from the point of view of some nasty people: politicians or, more likely, newspaper proprietors. Again, it boasts a clever arrangement. The story of immigrants fleeing war but full of optimism is recounted in ‘Over The Sea’. The truth is very different.

‘People’ is an odd one. I guess the theme is that we never learn from history or from our mistakes. Dan has a nice way of saying that we’re just going round in circles and achieving nothing. A gentle acoustic guitar introduces ‘Into The Wild’. Dan yearns for a simple life – the sort he knew as a child – but faces up to the reality that he couldn’t survive in the wild. That’s clever songwriting. ‘All Stand Up’ seems to become more relevant with each day that passes – with optimism that we can defeat the corporate machine, which I would pair with the political machine. ‘They Don’t Care’, which follows it, just confirms the views of all the “thems” out there.

Finally, ‘Inside My Head’ sees Dan putting himself down quite viciously while hoping for something better. If you’ve ever been crippled with self-doubt this is your song. It is also the only song I know that contains the word “schadenfreude” while including a ukelele in the arrangement.

With Beware Of Darkness Dan manages to examine so many of the ills which man is heir to while remaining positive that we can overcome them. It’s a very clever balancing act and a thought-provoking and entertaining listen

Dai Jeffries

Artist’s website: www.dansealey.com

‘Into The Wild’ – live: