There are multiple moments on Dan Croll’s extraordinary second album, Emerging Adulthood, which may cause you to question his sanity. Press play on the riotous “One Of Us” and prepare for the album’s purest pop moment. Soak up the dreamy “January Comes Too Soon” and sense the spirit of Earth, Wind & Fire summoned alongside vintage soul. Delve as deep as you dare into the Tijuana-tinged “Away From Today” and discover what could be the sound of a shotgun blast and crystal raindrops nestled next to a nod to the Pearl & Dean theme.
Elsewhere, Emerging Adulthood sends languid lounge-jazz in to outer space, sets a metronome at the centre of a song, blends brass and breakbeats, finds common ground between the Beach Boys and ELO and Paul Simon and Pink Floyd and tells the tale of a phantom heart attack. Throughout, it enchants and intrigues in equal measure. When it ends, you’ll wonder what the hell’s just happened while still humming along in your head.
Since the release in early 2014 of his critically-lauded debut album, Sweet Disarray, Dan has purposely proved impossible to pin down. A sonic explorer who approaches every song as a new adventure and uses instruments as inspiration and samples as signposts, he doesn’t so much sidestep genres as conquer several at the same time.
The range of bands who have sought out Dan as a support act — from Imagine Dragons, Bastille and Bombay Bicycle Club to Haim, London Grammar and Chvrches — attests to the ambitious scope his songs. Ditto the breadth of brands that synched every song on his debut album, among them Grand Theft Auto, FIFA, Citroen, Clairol, Burberry, Paul Smith and Apple’s iPhone 6, which launched across the world with his hit “From Nowhere.”
As magnificent as it is madcap, as brilliant as it is bonkers and as effortlessly addictive as it is odd, Dan Croll’s first professionally-produced album is a sumptuous, shape-shifting, surprise-packed pop triumph that keeps the listener gripped for the ride.