29/07/2025
Check out Mc's song "dang" 🔊
Mantagbac Music Reviews: "dang." by Mc San Jose
We encourage listening to the single before reading our review to support the artist: https://open.spotify.com/track/45hw3p9Exmmmo1Nu0srNoJ?si=9ec2d396e46c47e4
The streak of reviewing lowercase-titled releases continues...
MC dips his toes between shoegaze and dreampop with “dang.” This single is one of the artist’s unapologetically explorative tracks, which is an apparent theme in his recent stuff.
The song starts with monotonous dreamy vocals accompanied by a clean guitar chord progression, almost sounding acoustic—a combination that honestly almost took me out of the track. It reminds me of whenever I sleep after staying up until sunrise, and having to talk to a delivery rider at ten AM.
But lucky for us, as the first verse reverbs into nothingness, it transitions into a surprising, melancholic interlude. The sparse drums with consistent, distorted riffs frame out a lead that sounds like it desperately wants to be heard as it drowns in its own effects and other sonic elements.
The song is written unconventionally, seemingly without any chorus. And as the next verse follows, the aforementioned clean chords don’t resurface and are now replaced by backgrounds that mourn with the interlude.
The last verse opens up with “I speak to myself…” which cues the harmony vocals to go out of sync and delayed, becoming an almost ghastly addition to the lyrics that speaks of self-hatred and self-pity.
And as the last of the verse lets go, it leaves the song in a minute-long outro with a guitar solo that painfully swells into a wallowing climax.
“dang.” is a piece that has a self-aware instrumentation and mixing, complimenting its lyricism about reliving the moments with the one that got away. I’m lucky to be in a happy relationship listening to this in late July, or else I’m in for a tropical depression depression (not a typo).
That being said, combining the almost flat singing with a gorgeous production benefits the storytelling aspect of the song more than its sound, when it could’ve complimented both. Adding a few more effects to the vocals—maybe making it more obscured and blended—could’ve improved the track’s weakest link, especially if it’s going for a more shoegaze sound.
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MC is part of Mukna Collective, a blooming group of artists from the Partido district of Camarines Sur.
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