There are few occasions when we’ll soften our stance on lyric videos but certainly being introduced to the return of Villages on a cold mid-February day might just make the cut. The Cape Breton band have announced their first full-length self-titled album with “Moonlit” and the one thing that might melt our icy hearts just now: a nostalgia-driven late night mid-Summer ballad-backed drive to the edge of nowhere.
The band enlisted legendary producer Thomas Stajcer, of New Scotland Yard, to record the album at their home studio in rural Nova Scotia. Pairing a subtle foundation of synth pads and just briefly punctuated with a barely-there lead mandolin “Moonlit” gives us the first glimpse into the tone the new album takes, while holding down the prestigious place of the album’s closing track.
The track naturally draws comparisons to The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers album closer, the similarly titled “Moonlight Mile.” While the two tracks find their inspirations half a world apart (Mick Taylor having re-arranged “Moonlight Mile” from an unfinished guitar composition from Keith Richards titled “Japanese Thing”), the result seems to be same: a gentle lilt to leave us yearning for quieter times.
Directed by Jeff Miller, by which we assume to mean he drove the car that night, the video for “Moonlit” takes a suitably minimalist approach to an equally minimalist song. Passing along in the dark we are treated to more skyline than anything. With a bit of squinting you can only just make out the outlines of green things and the occasional flying insect to confirm that we are, in fact, experiencing a brief moment in a warmer season. It is inherently uncomplicated and, good lord, if we could just experience the purposeless luxury of a moonlit cruise the world might seem all the better for it.
Villages’ self-titled debut album is being released on March 22, 2019, though rumour has it that the band will be releasing another video next week along with a string of tour dates.