Today on our very own BFF.fm blog, we are thrilled to share the release of Oakland-based band Hectorine's new music video for their new song "Heart of Stone." The song comes out ahead of Hectorine's third album release, Arrow of Love,which drops this Friday, May 23rd!

Please enjoy the new music video "Heart of Stone" by Hectorine below!

Sarah Gagnon started Hectorine in 2016, and it has since become a beloved Bay Area band for the BFF community. We are so excited about Hectorine's new album! Arrow of Love nods to Hectorine's self-titled first album by incorporating instruments like the mellotron flute and harpsichord. Found throughout Hectorine's discography, Sarah Gagnon's songwriting remains lyrically honest, reflective, and deeply immersive.

The album Arrow of Love is a mythologically inspired concept record that traces the descent and return of the self after a series of trials and tribulations. Gagnon first encountered the ancient Mesopotamian myth of Inanna in an online literature class and has since woven pillars of the ancient and modern into an artfully precise album. The myth of Inanna, goddess of love and war, follows the heroine's descent into the underworld to learn the secrets of the chthonic realm. Throughout the story, Inanna encounters a series of trials that ultimately result in her rebirth and personal transformation. It is through the framework of this mythological tale that Sarah Gagnon shares her own story of transformation through hardship, after a series of losses in her life at the time.

Sarah Gagnon, whose voice evokes the emotional precision of Karen Carpenter and the haunted glow of Hope Sandoval, delivers each line of the song "Heart of Stone" like a spell through sonically wrapped vulnerability.

"I don't want to have a heart of stone. I don't want to walk down this road alone."

In these repeated lyrics, Gagnon expresses her experience with loneliness during the pandemic after losing her job and ending a relationship. It is her battle to endure alone: to keep a softened heart while journeying through a hardened world. Her delivery evokes the measured melancholy of artists slightly reminiscent of artists like Molly Nielsson, turning each line of the song into a quiet and relatable self-reckoning. The 80s-esque synth and her dusky, warm vocal tone wraps her piercing lyrics in velvet, encouraging the journey's forward momentum.

Unsurprisingly, Hectorine's Arrow of Love is an album you won't want to miss. Pre-order it here and listen for yourself this Friday!

Video credits are attributed to director and editor, Dana Laman; and director and DP, Ian Ashenbremer.

The album, Arrow of Love, will be released on May 23rd on Take A Turn Records and is available here for pre-order. Stay tuned for an amazing new album ahead!