(Left to right) Colton Hamilton, Mark Allen Scott, Zayn Dweik, Cam Garshon and Ben Malicoat (not pictured) play as villagerrr. Credit: Alec Cox
To only see beloved people and places in one’s dreamlike memories is excruciatingly painful. In fact, it’s perhaps the most wretched brand of loss and heartache: grief.
Yet, there is something beautiful and wondrous in such an immense longing. Mark Allen Scott, lead singer-songwriter of local indie group villagerrr, may agree with this assertion.
Though villagerrr began as a solo project for Scott in 2019, it later expanded to include guitarist Colton Hamilton, guitarist and percussionist Ben Malicoat, bassist Cam Garshon and drummer Zayn Dweik for live performances.
Released Friday, villagerrr’s fourth album — titled “Tear Your Heart Out” — exquisitely captures the nuances of love and loss.
Featuring lovely harmonies from Pittsburgh-based indie artist Merce Lemon, “Neverrr Everrr” begins the record’s thematic exploration of desperately yet hopelessly clinging to a dying relationship.
From the jump, this album certainly proves its ability to tear listeners’ hearts out.
Against bright guitar chords reminiscent of indie star Alex G, Scott and Lemon repeatedly beg a hurtful lover or friend to “come and look” at what they’ve done. Resigning their power in this fractured relationship with heartbreaking gentleness, they beg their targeted listener to honestly “let [them] know when it’s all done.”
Musically, the track’s heady sound reflects the utter emotional exhaustion of lingering “problems in [one’s head]” and “never ever” learning when to give up on a love that is evidently slipping away. Moreover, the crunchy and distorted guitar outro adds a shoegaze-esque flavor, heightening the long-lived pain that bubbles beneath hushed lyrics.
The shoegaze sound — which stems from an alternative rock subgenre characterized by loud, distorted instrumentals and heavy feedback — is a notable motif in villagerrr’s discography.
Tastefully woven throughout the album, this shoegaze influence offers listeners a refreshing range of diverse yet complementary sounds. It is perhaps most prominent in “Low,” a biting and ironic track driven by a forceful guitar drone.
“See” has similarly distorted guitars, which strikingly complement crisp piano notes. The fuzzy yet bright track further exemplifies Scott’s subtly heartbreaking lyricism; palpable heartache colors his promise to be a lover or friend’s “littlest secret” and his inability to “see” how their relationship unraveled.
Scott has a particular gift for expressing overwhelming emotions through everyday, small-town memories: His car “somehow” breaks down near an old lover’s or friend’s house (“Runnin Road”), he wishes he could “take it back to before” with an estranged friend he once saw “down at the liquor store” (“Car Heart”) and memories of sunlight penetrate his sunroof on the way to a lover’s “small town” and the “perfect mess” of their kitchen (“Barn Burnerrr”).
Deeply vivid, these recollections are sure to inhabit listeners’ minds for weeks to come. The arresting clarity and personal nature of his imagery make it simple to see why he “[keeps] all the memories” (“See”) of lost loves and friendships.
Indeed, these personal lyrics make for a standout album. On “Runnin Road,” an address to an ex-lover or -friend that can be equated to an emotional hangover, Scott’s lament that “it’s not fair” to be “stranded…nowhere” and straightforward disclosure that he is “sick” are heartrendingly vulnerable.
As a lyricist, Scott consistently wears his heart on his sleeve. He admits to someone to whom he “gave everything” that “he could die” in “Cry On,” and begs a former lover or friend to “come right back, baby” on the folky “Come Right Back.” This cathartic sincerity is both powerful and commendable.
The album’s shortest track, “Honesty,” strikes an impressive balance between delicate acoustics and heartfelt electric guitar, arguably becoming a musical manifestation of the repressed yet explosive emotions that define its lyrics.
Emotionally complex, its lyrics are among the album’s best, and Scott’s plea for a lover to not get angry resounds as an exhausted attempt to salvage a relationship. Punctuated by the reveal that Scott’s “been working on [his] temper,” this quietly desperate and imperfectly human attempt to make amends simply aches to be heard.
I also argue the album’s most stunning lyric is nestled in this short track.
Scott’s admission to a lover that “if only for a month, [he’s] forever in [their] clutch” blew me away with its simplicity in capturing infatuation’s transience and eternity. What an ineffable mixture of comfort and pain there is in recognizing that a love, no matter how intense in the moment, will not always be all-consuming.
The album could not close better than with “River Ain’t Safe,” a track “inspired by the Ohio [River] chemical spill in early 2023 and friendship” according to villagerrr’s Instagram page.
Endearing Ohio to deeply personal memories, relationships and feelings through the Ohio River — a metaphorical representation of the unbridgeable gap between two people that’s been “dragging [one] down for too long now” and “ain’t safe anymore” — is charmingly personal and quintessentially villagerrr.
Similar to its predecessors, this track’s emotional depth emerges from its blend of glimmering hope and heart-wrenching realism, as it examines the tragedy of a decaying relationship.
Scott reflects on “the ways in which [he] will” inevitably let a friend down while raising that there are ways in which he hasn’t. Moreover, he holds onto tangible memories of “the way it felt” when his friend stared up at him, all while knowing they were overlooking their doubts and what they really needed.
The lingering pain of losing a friend or lover is that they’re never really gone. Even when one realizes there’s a river between them and a loved one, it’s nearly impossible not to wait for them “to visit…again in the land where all [one’s] dreams live.”
Maybe the process of “[tearing] your heart out” doesn’t need to be violent, loud or dramatic. Heartbreak is so often fraught with tiny, growing cracks: scenes and words stuck on replay in one’s mind, last-ditch attempts to save what is already beyond repair.
Capturing this side of grief is a rare feat, which villagerrr eloquently accomplishes on this absorbing album.
I encourage listeners to take note of and believe in the album’s lasting impressions. If love can live on after heartbreak, so can the heartbroken. As sung on the title track, “tear your heart out and you’re living again.”
Rating: 4.5/5
