It's the Mangan with a plan (Oh Dear - Ed)! Rather the talk of the town at the minute, Dan Mangan's career has comprised his debut album Postcards and Daydreaming, the lovely EP Roboteering, plenty of touring and travel, and the obvious high watermark that is being interviewed by TLOBF's Ro Cemm. Hearing someone follow an EP with an album is always a tense and intriguing prospect. On the EP, most artists will have covered a few stylistic bases - which of them will they focus upon on the album? Which songs will reappear? How different will the new songs be to what we've heard before? It's a curious form of expectation, and that kind of expectation weighs down on Mr Mangan as he offers to us Nice, Nice, Very Nice.Following along with that idea, we can look back on Roboteering and see what directions Mangan is and was capable of going in. 'Robots' itself is slow to unfurl but nevertheless a wonderfully cathartic pop song in its singalong conclusion, while conversely 'A Tragic Turn of Events' was an almost Dylan-esque stream-of-consciousness meditation on death that ran to well over eight minutes. From a cursory scan of Nice's tracklisting, you might suspect that because 'Robots' reappears here but '...Turn of Events' does not, that Mangan has stuck to the more accessible side of things for his new full-length. Indeed, opener 'Road Regrets' appears to confirm that, with its escapist theme and flaming guitars, but I'd argue that even that is misdirection. Whilst there are accessible, populist moments here, Nice, Nice, Very Nice is a deeply mature and introspective album which is very slow to display its emotional core and thus, its appeal.The bulk of the songs here have restrained, subtle arrangements to frame their stories. Acoustic guitar strummed with restraint, flashes of tambourine, and extremely sensitively deployed string arrangements are all in evidence. Combined with Mangan's husky voice and themes of getting away from it all, homecomings and growing old, this is a reflective, philosophical, almost world-weary album at times. Songs like 'Pine For Cedars' in particular have an amazingly palpable yearning feeling to them, a mode which Mangan is particularly at home with. Songs from Roboteering like 'Robots' and 'Sold' may still constitute some of the high points on the album, especially for those who won't have heard them before, but alongside 'Road Regrets' the album has its own great exclusives, for want of a better word.Chief among these is 'Basket'. Sung from the perspective of an old, lonely man, it uses a jigsaw puzzle as a wonderful analogy for life, and has one of Mangan's very best singing performances yet. Brilliantly, the song pauses occasionally as if losing its train of thought, punctuating what is possibly the album's prettiest melody. The lyrics are exemplary, adding an edge of tragedy but also peace to that yearning we've already heard. If you really listen to this song wholly, giving it all your attention, and hear it loud, you may well struggle not to cry - honestly. It may well be the best song about getting old since 'When I'm Sixty-Four'.There's no doubt about it, Nice, Nice, Very Nice is heavy going. It's not hugely long (under 45 minutes) but its songs are largely quite slowly paced and it can be a bit of a trial to listen to the whole thing - in fact, I sometimes think it sounds better shuffled than in the right order. Mangan has some potentially divisive habits - pausing in his singing for example - but anyone who's already been won over by him will not be put off by this album, which indeed could and should win him even more admirers. Mature, slow to unravel, and broad in scope, this is a fine, fine, very fine record indeed. 78%Dan Mangan on MySpace