Made in an old school bus in the woods without cell reception or electricity, Devarrow’s charming, dreamy fourth album ‘Heart Shaped Rock’ is a radiant, rich tapestry of reflections, observations, and warm sounds channeled loosely through an indie folk lens.
for fans of Little Kid, Hovvdy, TOLEDO
Stream: “Likewise” – Devarrow
I asked myself what a record would sound like if I didn’t care about how cool, relevant, or artistic it was, and instead just wrote from the heart.
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It’s safe to say that most records you’ll hear this year weren’t written in an old converted school bus in the woods.
Thankfully, Devarrow’s fourth studio album ticks that all-important box.
Of course, it’s not the bus itself that matters, but rather what happened within those four steel and fiberglass walls that became a little artistic refuge, with no cell reception or electricity, where singer/songwriter Graham Ereaux went to unplug (literally and figuratively) from the world
“I thought deeply about solitude, nature, purpose, community, and the importance of my relationship with each,” the Halifax, Nova Scotia-based artist tells Atwood Magazine.
“I wanted to make a record which felt intuitive, carefree, and laidback. I asked myself what a record would sound like if I didn’t care about how cool, relevant, or artistic it was, and instead just wrote from the heart. I’m happy with this intention, and the outcome from thinking that way too.”
Unencumbered by external pressures or even internal expectations, Devarrow’s Heart Shaped Rock is a radiant, rich tapestry of reflections, observations, and warm sounds channeled loosely through an indie folk lens. Dramatic and dreamy, charming and disarming, it’s a smile-inducing indulgence and escape all at once – a collection of songs that promise to enchant, inspire, and light a fire inside all who listen.
Raw creativity does breed raw creativity, after all.
Likewise is the same thing
As saying goodbye again when we’ve tried again
And I go walking when my heart is talking
And telling me to put down the phone
And go outside to clear my mind and pass the time
But all I ever think about,
all I ever think about is you my sweetest love
Call me in the night when I feel restless
Call me in the night when I feel tested
Call me in the night when I feel restless
Call me in the night when I feel tested
– “Likewise,” Devarrow
Released October 4, 2024 via Paper Bag Records, Heart Shaped Rock is an exhilarating rush full of unexpected and delightful twists and turns. Devarrow keeps audiences on their feet in his second studio album of the year, following April’s surprise third LP, A Long & Distant Wave. And while both records came out within just a few months of one another, they feel like two distinct sides to his artistry and identity.
“A Long & Distant Wave basks in moments of stillness and movement, reflection and reconnection,” Atwood Magazine wrote in a feature published earlier this year. “It’s a spirited, soft, and seductive record that dwells in the ebb and the flow, soaking in the fullness of our days and nights as Devarrow celebrates life’s little moments, shining a soul-stirring spotlight on the oft-forgotten in-betweens… an intimate, vulnerable, confessional collection of songs dwelling in the deep end of the emotional spectrum.”
Heart Shaped Rock is lighter and brighter than its predecessor. “I hope that it shows a carefree side of Devarrow – a reflection of how I actually spend my days,” he explains.
“In ways, it’s the most personal record I’ve ever made, as it describes what I actually do in my day to day, and what I am thinking about.”
And therein lies the real rub of these songs. “I wanted to make a record which felt fun and carefree, while also maintaining a sense of artistic integrity,” Devarrow adds.
“I feel like those two things often feel mutually exclusive in the indie folk genre, so it was a good challenge for me. I had a pretty clear vision for that, and unlike a lot of things I do, the vision stayed pretty true through the whole songwriting and recording process.”
Devarrow describes his album as carefree, driving, and coffee.
“I often go out looking for heart shaped rocks,” he says in relation to the title.
“I love that they are everywhere, and often you don’t need to look for them to find them. They are little meaningless joys, and this is exactly what I tried to do while making this record too.”
While heart shaped rocks may be little meaningless joys, this album’s thirteen songs are anything but. Within the journey from “Lightning Bolt” to “Come Again” lie candid, uplifting, and upbeat explorations of what Devarrow describes as “love, loss, self-discovery, and social consciousness.” Highlights include dynamic and spirited “Likewise,” the radiant and easygoing title track “Heart Shaped Rock,” the feverish “All the Little Things” (and its seductive, fiery strut), and the achingly emotive and impassioned “Half of You.”
“I am also a fan of ‘Heart Shaped Rock’ as a track, because it feels laid back and carefree to me, blending folk pop with guitar rock,” Devarrow says with a smile. “‘Falling into Pieces’ is [also] one of my favorite songs and lyrics on the record. ‘Falling into pieces’ would imply something is breaking apart, but it can also imply pieces are falling into place. To me, it’s about unlearning the things that mean little to us, shattering our assumptions of what makes a good life, and then putting them back together in a way which actually serves us.”
As far as albums made in old school buses out in the woods are concerned, Heart Shaped Rock is without a doubt the best of the best.
Devarrow’s fourth album is whimsical, warm, wondrous, colorful and candid, intimate and engaging the whole way through. And perhaps most important of all, it’s fun and carefree – which, as he himself has said, are two qualities not often found in the indie folk canon.
“I hope listeners will find something in it which encourages them to keep listening, and at best, helps define a carefree time in their own life,” Devarrow shares.
“There are a few records in my life, which feel meaningful to me because they came to me at a time when I needed them. They aren’t necessarily famous records; they were just timely. I hope that Heart Shaped Rock can do that for others. I think we all need an outlet to be a bit less serious, so hopefully this record can help folks find that.”
Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside Devarrow’s Heart Shaped Rock with Atwood Magazine as he takes us track-by-track through the music and lyrics of his fourth studio album!
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:: stream/purchase Heart Shaped Rock here ::
:: connect with Devarrow here ::
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Stream: ‘Heart Shaped Rock’ – Devarrow
:: Inside Heart Shaped Rock ::
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LIGHTNING BOLT
Lightning Bolt was written during a couple cold winter days in my converted school bus. I remember the time distinctly, as I had to keep the wood stove going to keep things warm, and spent many hours huddled up beside it, guitar in hand. I was listening to a lot of J.J. Cale at that time, and was inspired by his bluesy driving rhythms. I took that driving rhythm and sped it up, finding a way to incorporate it into a more contemporary poppy feel. Lyrically, I was striving for something that reflected a bit of the laid back vibe of being down at the bus, mixed with the idea that some days it’s just impossible to get anything done with so many distractions. Half the trouble with slowing down is just getting past all the distractions which pass you along the way.
LIKEWISE
Likewise is in fact an older song which has been substantially reworked. It first was written during an artist residency at the Banff Centre of the Arts back in 2019, and at that time had an entirely different chorus. The present chorus was actually just an outro. When I was looking through old demos when workshopping for Heart Shaped Rock, I found myself being quite drawn to the outro more than anything, so decided to rework the song with that being the chorus. I felt the song had quite a poppy feel, so leaned in to create a version which felt a little angsty, but welcoming, and accessible to a wide audience.
HEART SHAPED ROCK
The title track of the record was the last song to be written, and only materialised in the final week of recording. This fact fits in line quite well with the album concept which the name derives from – searching for beautiful things in plane sight. The fact that Heart Shaped Rock came into being so quickly and effortlessly felt fitting, as the process in making this record was about learning to find happiness in the basic, and writing a song so easily felt as if I’d achieved what I set out to do.
TOGETHER AGAIN
This song has a long and winding history. The original melody came from a practice session with my band in a low ceiling basement in Halifax in 2018. That house and basement eventually was torn down to make way for condos, but the melody remained. In 2020 I was asked to write a song to accompany an advertisement, and as a result, unearthed that old melody and put some ultra happy lyrics to it. The advertisement didn’t pan out either, but the demo did, and as I was workshopping Heart Shaped Rock, I realised to my delight, that that short song was in fact a perfect candidate for the new record and its sonic and lyrical vibe. Being just a minute and a half though, I felt it was a bit too short and needed a fun outro. Enter Evan, my bandmate, and player of all instruments and genres. This track was a great collaboration, as Evan layered his melodies to create the second half of the song. Fun fact, the vocals and acoustic guitars of the first half of the song are in fact the demos from the original recording in 2020.
HOLY GHOST
Holy Ghost is an older song, and its origins are even a mystery to me. I remember the first time I played it was at an outdoor concert in Munich, Germany in about 2018, but beyond that, I can not recall when it was first conceptualised. What makes this song special for me, is that it is the only song on the record which was performed live. The recording you hear was in fact from a DIY demo session I did with my band in 2018 in an old farmhouse in Nova Scotia. At the time of recording, I had a terrible ear infection, so my vocals were terrible as I couldn’t hear myself. The vocals were recorded fresh during the creation of Heart Shaped Rock, but all other instruments are from the original demo. This song is a testament to the fact that you can recreate recordings, but you can’t always recreate a vibe. I tried to re-record this song in its entirety, but in the end, I realised the demo was just the best.
PICTURES
Pictures is a song about grief, written not from the perspective of reflection, but rather a direct channel of experiencing grief in the moment. This song is proof for me that music comes from beyond us, or at least can tap deep into the subconscious. The song was “written” in about five minutes, and as I recall, I just sat down and played it, it coming out of me and originating from somewhere beyond me. The song is about a friend who passed away in a plane crash. While I was not personally close with her, she was a central figure to my immediate friend group, and with her loss, I felt the grief among my friends. I recall hearing about her passing, and feeling in shock, and it wasn’t until the following day that I felt the weight of her loss and what it would mean for my friends. In that moment, I felt I had nothing to do but sit down and play the piano.
HALF OF YOU
This song is a hodgepodge of a few songs I blended together to make one. When workshopping for Heart Shaped Rock, I would often reference many demos I’d made over the years, and try to find ways to finish them, or combine them to make a completed song. The foundation of this song comes from a demo I’d made almost a decade ago. That guitar riff, and its basic melody and lyrics, compelled me to finish it. I then found another demo I had on piano, which I reckoned could fit in nicely as an intro. Mashing them together, I found a new space for the song to exist, and put more emphasis on the driving piano. It was fun to make a song that was fast and poppy, but largely driven by a rumbling and heavy piano. I ended up never changing the lyrics, so the ones that made the final cut are just the adlib lyrics I sang from the original demo. They don’t make any sense, but I liked the way they sounded.
BUS BABY
If all the other songs on this record are the chapters, Bus Baby is the introduction. It was a song conceived and written in my converted school bus, on a couple of cold winter days by the woodstove. Over the last three years, I have spent a lot of time alone at the bus, working away on its conversion to a studio and retreat, and with all this time away from home, a joke emerged with my partner that I was cheating on her not with a person, but with the bus. So, Bus Baby is about my love affair with the bus, and it stands as a metaphor for me finding happiness and clarity in the mundane. It’s also the only song on the record to use a drum machine – a choice that comes from the fact that I was writing the song alone, and needed a steady beat to accompany me as I worked out the parts of the song. Instead of fully replacing the programmed drums with Evan’s real ones, I decided to leave in the drum machine as a reminder of the song’s origins. Another fun fact is that the bells you hear in the bridge are in fact me holding my two kittens up to the mic, and shaking their little collars.
FALLING INTO PIECES
This song is another song which was written quite late in the recording process, only taking shape in the last few weeks of recording. Sometimes between scheduled recording sessions I’d just sit and doodle on my guitar with the recording gear still running. Falling Into Pieces is a track which came from one of those doodles. The lyrics are a bit abstract as they were actually the adlib lyrics, which I found to somehow make sense and be compelling. I like writing songs which drift from the regular formulas of song structure, and this track was a fun challenge to write a song without a bridge but that still felt complete.
HELP ME
Help Me is a song about environmental and social collapse. I would jokingly call myself a “graceful prepper.” Through living rurally, I have come to love self-reliance and the joys of building a community which feels more reliant on one another, and less reliant on traditional capitalistic structures. While writing this record, I spent a lot of time reading books like “The Encyclopedia of Country Living” and “The Unsettling of America”, and Help Me encapsulates my desires to find meaning in life through strong community bonds and a relationship with the environment. I think we can also be lulled into thinking that life as we know it will always be here, or if not, will suddenly collapse, and this song is a protest to that binary. I believe structures are always grumbling, and with that slow motion collapse, we can fail to see them happen. The erosion of our right to affordable and local food, the loss of privacy and the rise of mass surveillance; these to me are issues which we can all care about, regardless of political identity or class.
ALL THE LITTLE THINGS
A lot of songs on this record have a large theme of love and relationships, and I think it would be easy to think that the love I’m thinking about is one between people. “All The Little Things” is an example of how I often use basic language about relationships as metaphor for bigger ideas. Whether it’s this song, Likewise, or Lightning Bolt for example, I’m never actually talking about a distinct person, and instead, am often referring to the relationship with oneself, and the desires to find love within oneself. All The Little Things is an ode to my twenties, an obituary of sorts. I found my twenties to be marked by anxiety, depression, and a deeo sense of insecurity. I’ve welcomed my thirties in with open arms, and am happy to have grown so much over the past several years. This song is about the end of one chapter in life, and the beginning of another.
TALKING SHIT
Talking Shit is my one really angsty song on the record, and a direct protest to a culture I see which is damaging to community. I’m a big fan of the author bell hooks, and I’ve always found great wisdom from her book All About Love. A central idea to that book is we will all be better off, and be kinder to one another, if we can learn to speak honestly and openly with everyone around us. Withholding one’s opinion is a form of power, and love is about removing one’s power. I’d rather an honest community with conflict and resolve than a dishonest one with resentment and polarisation. I strive to stay away from echo chambers of opinion, belief, and social class, and would rather have hard conversations with people who I share differing opinions with in the hopes of finding common ground and building a sense of humanity between us. I feel at this time more than ever that we need to strike common ground between people, because the world is only feeling more polarised and dangerous. Living rurally in many ways has shown the truth to this. It’s easy in a city to surround yourself with people just like you, while rurally you need the support of your entire community – whether you share the same identity or not – to thrive.
COME AGAIN
I wanted to close out the record with something slow, lazy and cathartic. Come Again is like a sunburn after spending too long at the beach. Drained but warm, you lazily retire, feeling sore but satisfied. The lines “come again” to me are about agreeing with myself to continue to work toward a life of meaning and joy. It’s a playful reminder that regardless of what is going on around you, regardless of whether your friends know about it or not, we each have the power in our own little way to bring good to the world time and time again.
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:: stream/purchase Heart Shaped Rock here ::
:: connect with Devarrow here ::
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© Bells LarsenHeart Shaped Rock
an album by Devarrow
