Sean Na Na Family Trees Or: Cope We Must by: Grace Arena Sun:03-Feb-08 Label: Dim Mak Year: 2007 WB rating 75 out of 100

It has been five years since the multitalented Sean Tillmann has released an album using his Sean Na Na pseudonym. In this off time Tillmann has been concentrating on strutting his stuff on stages and exciting audiences as his alter ego Har Mar Superstar. Unlike his more commonly known and outlandish persona, Tillmann has always written music for Sean Na Na that is earnest, candid and exposed. Family Trees Or: Cope We Must is a cohesion of uplifting catchy pop rhythms and vocals like that of Ben Folds, or James Mercer.

The further into the album you explore, the more his uplifting and happy guise is exposed. Tillmann writes music unlike other artists, he sings like the weight of the world is not spine crushing, but really he has a secret to tell you. He wants to bear his soul, to you and only you, so he’s wrapped his life up in a tidy pop package and tied a bow around it.

Family Trees Or: Cope We Must is distinctly autobiographical, minus overt bursts of self-pity or indulgence, plus a hint of conceit. On the track ‘Fold, Hit or Stand’, Tillmann reverses roles with the lyrics “The other night I woke up tense from dreaming, I was pregnant with a girl I didn’t love, I tossed and turned while this baby grew inside me.” On ‘Photo Booth’ he sings about being comfortable with his life and relationships, and even throws in a strange segway about the parallels of relationships to the eco system on ‘Hairspray’. These lamenting, mysterious and reflective lyrics are juxtaposed to his vivacious pop instrumentation, which can be confusing; does he want us to emerge from listening to the album feeling refreshed and felicitous? Or is he teaching us some sort of life lesson?

Sean Na Na is obviously not out to change the face of music, with cleanly crafted classic rock riffs, sporting some country influences with sliding guitars, decorative percussion and a mid-paced, almost constant rhythm through each track which is reminiscent of The Shins. With few exceptions, the safe dynamics and the tempo rarely change throughout the album, so it is easy for each song to lose its own persona, allowing the listener to become distracted from Tillmann’s convoluted and sometimes superficial stories. There seems to be a cookie-cutter formula to Family Trees Or: Cope We Must, and while the lyrics speak of growing up, experience and learning it sounds like Tillmann is playing with a group of session musicians, rather than experiencing something with friends.

It is easy to imagine each track off Family Trees Or: Cope We Must was written whilst in the midst of a killer hangover. Each song is happy, catchy and heartfelt but they exist as their own entity, there is a lack of cohesion and the tracks to do not flow or interconnect with one another. This lack of cohesion, coupled with the sometimes conceited lyrics and safe instrumentation stops the listener from fully connecting to Tillmann and embracing his stories. Having said this, the boppy, effulgent musical qualities of Family Trees Or: Cope We Must are at times endearing, and with further experimentation Sean Na Na could be onto something special.