Carley Ridersleeve -- Valley Heart Drive EP
Bee Delores reviews Valley Heart Drive, the new country pop release from New York singer Carley Ridersleeve. The EP brings comfort to anyone going through the messiness of their '20s.
Heartbreak is among life’s toughest experiences. Carley Ridersleeve gathers up the shards of her broken heart with her new EP. Valley Heart Drive, named after the street she was living on when the project was born of blood, sweat, and tears, fuses vast country influences to tell her story. It sometimes leans heavily into pop-flecked country, and other times, songs feature traces of a more traditional approach. Altogether, it captures the tragic beauty of heartbreak and what it means to find yourself again.
“Bad things happen to bad people,” she advises with the whirling dervish “Bad Things.” Spots of country styling moan in the background, as it also does with “Hangover of the Heart” and “American Girl.” Her voice rises and falls like flower petals in a gentle breeze. She leaves unmistakable marks on each melody, even when they burst into pop-country bulbs. “American Girl” quickly erupts into a Taylor Swift-like ode to young love and identity. It’s rose-pink, with Ridersleeve coating it with her signature gleam.
The Valley Heart Drive house “watched me as I was navigating the messiness and complexities of my mid-20s,” she says in a press statement. Woven into the EP’s fabric, location becomes a crucial puzzle piece to the story. Unintentionally, the echoes of sound reverberate off the house’s features, leaving faint scratches on songs like “She Knows.” There’s a calming quality present across six songs, as well, that seems to assuage any sense of misery. Such an experience with Carley Ridersleeve’s project mimics her own journey, as she confronts herself and the pain still lingering in her system.
Her Valley Heart Drive EP carries twists and turns that surprise you in the recovery process. That aching pressure in your chest never clears completely; it becomes part of who you are. The listener engages with their heartbreak in the hopes that they come to a blinding realization that it only lasts for a time before fading away, at least partially. Carley Ridersleeve is our guiding light, and by the end, we are free.
