Nightlands – Oak Island

I Fell In Love With A Feeling

In between touring and recording with indie-rock band The War On Drugs, Dave Hartley has spent much of his extra time with his other project Nightlands. In a matter of two and a half years and in collaboration with Eliza Hardy Jones, Christopher Coello, Severin Tucker, and Brandon Beaver, the Philly-based soft-rock “dream-science” band released its sophomore full-length Oak Island on indie label Secretly Canadian.

Opener “Time & Place” begins the album well; while it’s catchy and upbeat, the lyrics set up the listener for the nostalgic story-time that ensues throughout the record: “I’d like to invite you / For just a little while / To a place I used to go / When I was only 17.” Without break, there is a transition to “So Far So Long,” where Hartley plays trumpet among just two chords while lyrically looking back on a big break-up.

“You’re My Baby” delves deeper into the dreamlike, ambient sound heard on the first two tracks. The lyrics are simpler, reciting “You’re my baby” over and over with the eerie line, “This breath could be our last,” and the first minute of the song is nothing but slow distorted electric guitar and what sounds like maracas in the background. “Nico” originally began as a lullaby for Hartley’s nephew and evolved into a multi-layered retro-y trance track, and “Rolling Down The Hill” taking listeners somewhere else completely from all the previously mentioned songs.

Oak Island is a small island off the Nova Scotia coast and is rumored to hold a lot of buried treasure in its soil. Nightlands is able, track-by-track, to elicit a similar mystery within its many layers and nostalgic feel. For Dave Hartley fans especially, Oak Island is an album to add to the collection.