It is the voice which lures you in, certainly not the fact that Damon McMahon used to be in some New York band called Inouk with his brother, nor the story of that band’s bad end. He has a pleasing voice, soft and caressing and contemplative, set here against gently plucked acoustic guitar, with bass in the dim background.
Even more than his voice, McMahon has an effective sense of melody. Mansions is a slightly built album, barely ten songs long and crafted from a $200 demo, the story goes. It bears traces of Elliott Smith and every other late-night lonely troubled troubadour who came before him. With simple, nimble, elegant hooks.
And that sound carries Mansions a long way, for it is pretty and lilting and sad.
But it does not wear so well. In the end one pays attention to the lyrics, for they are bitter and raw and are concerned largely with things that matter deeply when you’re 25 and hardly at all when you’re 47. Love gone wrong is one thing, but love gone wrong in France just doesn’t elicit much sympathy.
But he has that voice. So don’t listen too carefully, let the sound of the thing wash over the room.