In 2012, The Oh Hellos released their first full-length album, Through the Deep, Dark Valley. Ten years later, there’s plenty worth returning to in this indie-folk masterpiece. And in returning, we find new grace for the seasons of life.
On October 30, 2012, the Texas-based, sibling-run, folk-ish indie outfit The Oh Hellos released their first full-length album, Through the Deep, Dark Valley. When I first realized that this album turned 10 this year, several things ran through my mind.
“I love this album so much, I should write one of those super-interesting, pop-culture-retrospective essays on the album and get all the clicks.”
“Sweet, fancy Moses, 2012 was 10 years ago. That doesn’t feel possible.”
“Mumford & Sons and the Lumineers both released albums in 2012.”
“That was a good year for banjos and bow ties.”
“I should talk about Marble, Colorado. Which means I need to include the poem from Dana Gioia.”
“I’m going to have to explain my bizarre-o music-listening habits.”
Hard to know where to begin because so many of these things intertwine, overlap, and frolic on stage together, like The Oh Hellos themselves.
Let’s start with the band, actually, and work out from there. Siblings Tyler and Maggie Heath formed The Oh Hellos in their San Marcos, Texas, home, and self-released a self-titled EP in 2011. That EP included “Hello My Old Heart,” which became a sleeper hit on modern rock radio stations that year, because people still sort of listened to radio circa 2010. I discovered The Oh Hellos by way of “Hello My Old Heart” on Channel 93.3. out of Denver. I was like, “This is pretty dope. It’s acoustic-y, somber then uplifting, the ‘ba-dum-dums’ on the bridge are great, and lyrically there’s vaguely spiritual or Christian-related themes at work.”
Then they released Through the Deep, Dark Valley on October 30, 2012. I bought the album via their Bandcamp page. I still remember reading the description of the album as “a self-contained concept album” and their recommendation to listen to it in its entirety in one sitting, chronologically.
So I did that. The simple arrangements of “Hello My Old Heart” exploded into a folk-estra (folk + orchestra = you’re welcome) of sound, textures, and dynamics. On Valley, the Heath siblings and their troupe of musicians sound like fauns dancing and merry-making upon the main stage at Coachella. Through the Deep, Dark Valley is a frolicking, somber, and powerful meditation on lament and repentance. The vaguely spiritual themes in their EP now amplified a tale of creation, fall, redemption—complete with references to Genesis 2-3 (“Like the Dawn”) and C.S. Lewis (“The Lament of Eustace Scrub”). The album’s coda is a handful of bars from the old hymn “Come Thou Fount.”
Through the Deep, Dark Valley found itself as part of the rising (and soon to be cresting) tide of indie-folk that was crashing upon the music industry. In 2012, Mumford & Sons released their second album, Babel, and were arguably the biggest band in the entire world, and definitely the biggest UK export since Coldplay. And even though they would eventually plug in and give the middle finger to the banjo, Babel was everywhere in 2012. (The best song on Babel is “Below My Feet.”)
There were other bow-tie startups hitting it big in 2012—like the Lumineers, whose self-titled debut album included the single “Ho Hey!” This song was everywhere, including all of your friends’ weddings, over the next two years or so. (The best song on that album is “Slow It Down.”) Then there was Iceland’s Of Monsters and Men, who released My Head Is An Animal in 2012. And while not folk, Of Monsters and Men were and are very much folk-adjacent, heavy on whimsy and drums and anthems full of “Heys!” and “Ohs!” and “La-la-las!” Their big hit was “Little Talks,” and its music video also seemed to be everywhere. (The best song on My Head Is An Animal is “Yellow Lights.”)
This wave of folk-forward artists supported by suspenders had been growing for some time, starting with the rise of the Avett Brothers, Gregory Alan Isakov and Radical Face in the mid-to-late Aughts. Then, of course, there was The Head And The Heart, who are still going strong, but in 2010, they were the standard bearers of hipster, indie-Americana. They were everyone’s favorite band that you had never heard of. Their self-titled album hit in 2010, and their second, Let’s Be Still, dropped in 2013. (The best songs on these albums are “Down in the Valley” and “10,000 Weight in Gold,” respectively.)
Taken together—from Gregory Alan Isakov, to Mumford & Sons, to the Head And The Heart, to The Oh Hellos—this wave had an ethos and a vibe all its own. If you dug this music, you were also likey to find oneself buying Pentax film cameras circa 1982, chopping wood with an axe bought from a guild in Kentucky, investing in far too many bow ties, and generally acting and looking like the dudes in the music video for Mumford & Sons’s “Hopeless Wanderer”:
Even as Mumford & Sons are skewering themselves, it’s easy to understand why their music, and this style of music generally—however overly eager, earnest, and corny it can be at times—appealed to so many.
In some ways, The Oh Hellos benefited from this collective sea-level rise of “real music” and old-timey cameras and upright bass and large-hats-at-dusk vibes. In other ways, I feel like they almost got—I dunno—a bit lost in the conversation? Though if getting slightly overlooked due to the presence of the Mumfords and Heads And Hearts of the world includes two NPR Tiny Desk concerts (one in 2015 and another in 2016 for their GOAT Christmas album), then you must be doing something right. Since 2012, the crew released their second album, the excellent and lush Dear Wormwood, in 2015, and four thematically related and varyingly satisfying EPs between 2017 and 2020.
If The Oh Hellos did miss out on the level of notoriety and fame of their contemporaries, Through the Deep, Dark Valley has surpassed all the others in terms of return-ability. Sure, there are plenty of banjos and standard folk and folk-adjacent things going on in this album. But from a thematic and lyrical perspective, this is a transcendent work of music.
Consider the way Maggie Heath sings the line, “And you will surely be the death of me / How could I have known?” near the end of the Genesis 2 ballad “Like the Dawn.” (In a Shakespearean twist, Maggie sings from the perspective of Adam.) Or the way she sings the line, “When you wage your wars against the one who adores you / Then you’ll never know the treasure that you’re worth / But I’ve never been the lovely one before” on “In Memoriam” against a backdrop of percussive elements and simple guitar before the background vocalists and the flute join in. Maggie’s voice is a force to be reckoned with in this valley.
Consider the retelling of the Prodigal Son via “Wishing Well.” Consider the way in which the tension in “The Lament of Eustace Scrubb” slowly builds, both musically and spiritually in its sense of regret and longing (“I’ll come around / Someday”), until the 2:25 mark when it releases like a river tumbling down a mountain.
Or consider how “The Truth Is a Cave” fades into “Valley (Reprise),” and how the latter carries you deeper, one massive drum-beat at a time, into the tragic heart of the human condition. And then out of it into a ray of hope and forgiveness, as the choir implores you to sing along: “We were fleeing for our lives / Will you lead me?”
I could go on. And I have gone on with it for 10 years now. What I’ve found is that Through the Deep, Dark Valley is as much of a place as it is a piece of music. It is, as the poet Dana Gioia would say, a place to return.
There are landscapes one can own,
bright rooms which look out to the sea,
tall houses where beyond the window
day after day the same dark river
turns slowly through the hills, and there
are homesteads perched on mountaintops
whose cool white caps outlast the spring.And there are other places which,
although we did not stay for long,
stick in the mind and call us back—
a valley visited one spring
where walking through an apple orchard
we breathed its blossoms with the air.
Return seems like a sacrament.Then there are landscapes one has lost—
the brown hills circling a wide bay
I watched each afternoon one summer
talking to friends who now are dead.
I like to think I could go back again
and stand out on the balcony,
dizzy with a sense of déjà vu.But coming up these steps to you
Dana Gioia, “Places to Return”
at just that moment when the moon,
magnificently full and bright
behind the lattice-work of clouds,
seems almost set upon the rooftops
it illuminates, how shall I
ever summon it again?
My wife, Lindsey, and I—and now our kids—have returned to this album whenever we return to the Crystal River valley between Carbondale and Marble in western Colorado. We have sought out this valley almost every year since 2011. We go in late September or early October when the mountainsides are alive with dying leaves. We retreat to Marble, where there is no cell service, to drink up the yellow light pouring through monasteries of aspens and amble down dirt roads and pull trout from ponds. That place has been a bright respite in our journeys through fostering and adopting our kids. It has been a hideaway as we’ve processed and wrangled with infertility. And in recent years it has been a wonderland for our kids to tromp about in.
Every time we go there, as soon as we pass through Carbondale, heading south on Colorado Highway 133 toward Marble, we hit play on Through the Deep, Dark Valley. Every time, without fail. With Mt. Sopris on our left, pastures of cattle and red-rock ridges rising to our right, and the Crystal River valley ahead, we kick into high gear with the opening drums on “The Valley.” I know certain landmarks more intimately because we’ll drive by them at roughly the same spot on the album on each trip through the valley. Through the Deep, Dark Valley has become synonymous with that drive, with our hideaways in Marble. The one would not be as significant without the other.
This is not to say that we only listen to Through the Deep, Dark Valley on our fall trips to Marble. But it is to say two things. The first is that whenever we hit that stretch of Highway 133 between Carbondale and Marble, the only music we play is that album. It is the soundtrack to our sojourning.
The second is that I only listen to The Oh Hellos during the fall. In fact, I only ever listen to the bands previously discussed above in the fall. Here’s the playlist:
This is how I listen to all of my music—seasonally. Certain bands and albums only get played at their appointed seasons. Typically, they have been assigned their spot on the calendar because I first encountered said band or album during that respective season. Or, it could be that a specific album or band is tied inexplicably to a place. (See: The Oh Hellos.) There are lots of other examples. Most (but not all!) of my emo, like The Promise Ring, is saved for spring and summer. But I save Jimmy Eat World, even though they’re emo, for the winter, because I did most of my formative Jimmy Eat World listening in the winter.
(For those keeping track at home, I have two summer playlists—not counting the playlist I reserve for the Fourth of July—the afore-linked-to fall playlist, an Advent playlist, a Christmas playlist, a post-Christmas winter playlist, a Lenten / Easter playlist, a spring playlist… and a playlist for whenever we’re eating tacos. You’re welcome.)
I realize that this is spectacularly odd listening behavior. I’m not sure when it began. Sometime in high school, I think, this pattern of listening to certain albums / songs / artists in a liturgical-calendar kind of way. But this way of embodying music has its merit. It’s basically how everyone treats Christmas music. I simply take the same approach to all music. And in doing so I am better able to tell when I am in the world. Oh, Collective Soul is blasting from my car speakers? Must be June. Ah, there’s Billy Eilish’s second album—must be late August. Etc. (Of course, the one downside to this approach is that when I hear an album or artist “out of season” I get a little bit of existential dislocation.)
The reserving of specific albums / bands / songs for their respective seasons has also given me a tangible way to return to and transition out the seasons of the year and the seasons of life. In the doldrums of late August, when I’m tired of the heat and longing for crisp autumn nights and foliage aflame, I also have the music of that season to look forward to. And I have the music of the current season to help ground me, to teach me to be content with what I have and where I am.
Even if that’s in, say, a deep, dark valley. Or the Crystal River valley. Or even if it’s way down at the bottom of November (shout-out to Sandol Stoddard Warburg). The setting aside of music as holy, as sacred for given times and given places, is really about a way of moving through the world. Of seeing each season as a gift of grace, specially given by our Creator. Of paying attention to the natural and emotional landscapes of my life, and how those landscapes have shaped my past and will inform my future. Of summoning things that I once thought lost and entrusting their care to the Lord of the valleys and the hills.
