villagerrr
Tear Your Heart Out Deluxe Reissue
Winspear
Speed limits were strictly enforced on Tear Your Heart Out, villagerrr’s achingly beautiful 2024 album of insular slowcore cadences and troubled quietude. Out now on vinyl for the first time, its contents also spilling out of a new digital deluxe edition padded with extras, the captivating LP — by turns minimal and lush — goes at a leisurely pace, empathetically chronicling feats of inner strength in slightly twangy depictions of everyday struggles and rural ennui.
Past visitors to Mark Allen Scott’s tiny corner of the world will likely settle back into its low-key, gently stirred rhythms, clever little chord changes that feel like keepsakes, and relatable lyrical microcosms, while new arrivals shouldn’t be in a rush to explore the old farmhouse atmospherics of Tear Your Heart Out. As it gradually reawakens, coaxing wistful melodies — more vivid than expected — from unhurried, sparsely furnished instrumentation and living-room closeness, villagerrr once again extends a warm Midwestern welcome, a weak smile on its face and bittersweet profundity in its words and narratives.
Originally available via cassette on Darling Records, its inventory completely sold out, Tear Your Heart Out was recently adopted by Winspear, with its minor songwriting miracles and softly rolled r’s. The lightly strummed “Neverrr Everrr” and “Barn Burnerrr” are going to a good home, threads of guitar tied loosely, delicate hooks sliding across a hardwood floor, both aglow with twinkling incandescence. In the latter, the promise of rekindled love in a small town offers hope and a second chance, while the former cozies up to a downy duet of quiet, male-female vocals that is utterly sublime. Indie artist Merce Lemon makes a lovely singing partner, reappearing every so often to add a feminine touch.
Growly at first, the shuffling “Car Heart” is a crestfallen stunner, its broken dreams caught up in a flood of banjo drift, crumbling piano, and electric guitar surge, while a sashaying “Come Right Back” — sauntering about acoustically, golden light coming through the window — wishes, perhaps in vain, for a loved one’s return. Somehow able to marinate in melancholy, without succumbing to outright despair, Scott drags a lovely, drawn-out “Cry On” out of a deep depression, where “Low” cleans out any dusty Americana debris and embraces full-on indie-rock stargazing, throwing pulsating electronic beats against black sheets of rainy distortion and vertiginous swirl.
“Honesty,” however, unfolds gradually, rewarding patience and persistence, which is all Tear Your Heart Out asks of its rapt audience. As is, it’s a bruised, yet gorgeous, collection of songs, simply arranged to take your breath away. That arresting quality carries over into the five previously unreleased tracks that await in the digital deluxe edition – the exquisitely tortured, lo-fi cruiser “Portsmouth Raceway” and the sly charmer and wholesome affirmation of friendship “Ride or Die w/ Lydia” among them. Home is where Tear Your Heart Out is and always will be.
