Dave Hartley pinpointed the inspiration for his Nightlands project with the title of a 2012 song: “I Fell in Love With a Feeling.” Hartley—also the bassist for the War on Drugs—makes records that embrace the most atmospheric, ephemeral elements of pop and soft rock. Reverb-coated harmonies, gentle rhythms, and major-key melodies permeate his work, riding high on good vibes without digging for much substance beneath it. After all, his songs suggests, the longer you think about what you’re feeling, the less you’re really feeling it. Hartley’s most memorable recordings, like “I Fell in Love With a Feeling,” aim for a sense of cozy familiarity over any kind of innovation—like Dirty Beaches if they’d been into Bread instead of Suicide.
I Can Feel the Night Around Me is Hartley’s most ambitious record yet, one that takes him out of his bedroom and places him out on the open road. On its best songs, he trades his breezy pop chops for earnest, soul-seeking Americana, like on “Lost Moon”—a swirling ballad that attributes a sense of playfulness to the assumed textures of folk music. Over starry synths and acoustic guitars, Hartley rides a high, lonesome sound that mimics the whine of a pedal steel before twisting into something more like an air horn. Like the best folk music, it’s mysterious and open-ended, comfortable and enveloping.
The following track, “Depending on You,” is another highlight, with a chorus that floats like a band of helium balloons untethering toward the sky. During this opening stretch of songs, Hartley’s music is distinctive and confident, but his lyrics still feel like placeholders. Days go by, yellow moons turn blue, horizons fade. His penchant for layering his voice in tight ribbons of harmony is a pleasant sound, but it depletes most of his sentiments of their emotional resonance. On “Easy Does It,” he lingers on some inner demons but struggles to make them seem real. “There’s a shadow man living inside of me,” he sings, “He’s been there since the day I was born.” Instead of elaborating, however, Hartley just wraps things up with a multi-layered sigh and moves on to the chorus.
I Can Feel the Night Around Me centers on moving on, whether that means hitting the highway or breezing through its 41-minute runtime before anything can harsh its mellow. After a faithful cover of Phil Spector and Gerry Goffin’s “Only You Know,” Hartley ditches most of the Laurel Canyon charm and retreats to his more characteristic, carefree chillwave. The highlights that appear in the second half—like the motion-sick power-pop of “Fear of Flying” or the drowsy bossa nova of “Moonbathin”—are also the record’s most seamless transitions to amiable background music, something to help clear your mind after a stressful day. “I just want to hear you say, ‘Easy does it,’” Hartley sings repeatedly in a track of the same name, and it’s one of the only sentiments here that he really sells. For anyone looking to bask in that simple pleasure with him, Nightlands creates a space where you can feel it all around.
