{"id":5623,"date":"2013-01-23T07:12:51","date_gmt":"2013-01-23T13:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/?p=5623"},"modified":"2013-01-23T07:12:51","modified_gmt":"2013-01-23T13:12:51","slug":"album-review-nightlands-oak-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/2013\/01\/23\/album-review-nightlands-oak-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Nightlands &#8211; <i>Oak Island<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/nightlands_oak_island.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-5624\" title=\"oakislandoption22.11183\" src=\"http:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/nightlands_oak_island-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/nightlands_oak_island-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/nightlands_oak_island-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/nightlands_oak_island-50x50.jpg 50w, https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/nightlands_oak_island.jpeg 475w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>Dave Hartley, the one-man force that is Nightlands, emerges from the electronic shadows with his second album, <em>Oak Island<\/em>, out this week on Secretly Canadian. After \u201cinviting [us] for just a little while, to a place [he] used to go when he was only 17\u201d on opener \u201cTime and Place,\u201d Hartley allows that world of beautiful harmonies, soft acoustics, and masterfully rendered synthetic sounds to unfurl gently like rolling hills.\u00a0 The opener serves as a representative sample of the sounds to come; of course, soft synths stretch out, harmonious melodies abound, but there are also crisp acoustics and eventually upbeat snares that indicate the album will have its energetic moments. Hartely delivers all this and more.<\/p>\n<p><em>Oak Island<\/em> offers one of its best tracks in \u201cSo Far So Long,\u201d where easy, smooth-jazz saxes wah behind a groovy, somber melody that acts as a mental glue, sticking in your mind for days. Acoustic guitars improbably kick off \u201cNico\u201d before Hartley tapers it with processed vocals and electronic drums. As one of the album\u2019s most upbeat songs, it\u2019s a treasure.<\/p>\n<p>Hartley dares us not to bob our proverbial heads on \u201cBorn to Love\u201d before providing the album\u2019s second-shortest and most rocking track, \u201cI Fell in Love with a Feeling.\u201d Here, the brass announces itself more clearly, Hartley\u2019s vocals are at their most unfiltered, and a steady beat defines the song\u2019s structure. A definite highlight, it\u2019s also the most divergent track on the album.<\/p>\n<p>I found the funk and rapid-fire vocal delivery of \u201cRolling Down the Hill\u201d to be the weakest point on the album, but Hartley quickly reorients himself for the closing two tracks, offering parting gems. I love \u201cOther People\u2019s Pockets\u201d in all its spacey-church-hymn glory.<\/p>\n<p>As the album comes to an end, its brevity is striking. At only 33 minutes, Hartley has played his hand perfectly, offering enough to satisfy but stopping short of satiating or saturating. For an album of electronic soundscapes, the songs are surprisingly focused and brief\u2014a quality that leans them in the direction of pop and strikes a vital balance. As an album that should be taken as a whole, <em>Oak<\/em> <em>Island<\/em> is a triumph, a cohesive vision by an artist defining himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dave Hartley, the one-man force that is Nightlands, emerges from the electronic shadows with his second album, Oak Island, out this week on Secretly Canadian. After \u201cinviting [us] for just a little while,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1079,1001,1002,629],"class_list":["post-5623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-review","tag-electronic","tag-nightlands","tag-oak-island","tag-secretly-canadian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5623"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5626,"href":"https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5623\/revisions\/5626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poppressinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}