With Dark Island, Canadian folksters Villages have written quite possibly the best (and I’m confident in declaring, only) album dedicated to their native Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. The album is a love letter to the area and those that inhabit it for a mostly enjoyable, if somewhat droning effort.
Kicking off with “Wearing Through The Pine,” the sunny track showcases the band at their best, playing sweetly optimistic, melodious indie folk not unlike The Avett Brothers and Fleet Foxes. The album, their second full length, also adds in some solid Celtic flourishes that help separate the band from a lot of their peers. Villages also pull in some surprising early influences from groups like Teenage Fanclub and Belle and Sebastian.
Also, worth calling out is the band’s first single, the catchy “Love Will Live On,” about the drudgery of modern life, and finding peace of mind in remote areas cut off from most of the world. Speaking of the song, the band explained that it’s about what would happen if you finally lived out the daydream many have of walking away from their current, cluttered life. Nature and tranquility are constant themes throughout the record with the band doing a decent job of using their landscape and its physical attributes to bring out deeper themes of mindfulness and love.
While the band does an impressive job of building almost an entire album out of devotion and adulation to rural life on a very specific island, it’s hard to keep that momentum up for 11 songs. And by the end of the record, the band seems to be running out of steam. There is a very solid EP inside Dark Island, but it is difficult to keep the energy and interest up for 11 songs. There are only so many ways you can praise remoteness and tranquility.
