Album Review: City and Colour – The Love Still Held Me Near

Balladic, emotional and deeply personal

Dallas Green’s newest venture in his career with City and Colour is one rooted in extremely personal trials and tribulations. Intensely affected by loss during the early years of the pandemic, The Love Still Held Me Near is a ballad of tracks detailing what it means to persevere through pain. Green wasn’t alone in his efforts to shift his pain into creativity—his peers, feeling the same pain, assisted greatly by understanding and collaboratively feeling the theme and undertones of the album.

It comes as no surprise that Green, who has been releasing music since the early 2000s, has chosen once again to encapsulate his emotions in a studio album. A Pill for Loneliness, was a profile of Green’s own connection to and critical thoughts about experiencing life, love and emotional toil. As a result, it is clear that Green finds comfort throughout The Love Still Held Me Near, with each track being a search and joyous discovery of said comfort.

The Love Still Held Me Near begins with “Meant to Be,” a track with a gentle acoustic intro leading into a steady, but brassy accompaniment. The track is relatively quiet and maintained by the beat of the drums; Green’s voice, however, is the focal point, as he begins with a restrained but skillful falsetto. Green’s lyrics read like an extended story that’s unsurprisingly raw–they begin with “When I grew up / I had city dreams / I wondered if the Bible was wrong / what the hell were they teaching me?”, eliciting an immediate closeness to Green as the album opens. The lyrics also contain some thoughtfully chosen words: later in the track Green sings of “church bells” and “mourners sing[ing]”; knowing the background of this album assists in the knowledge of these words’ identity as having more depth than simple wordplay.

“Meant to Be” is an interesting opening for the album, as it’s a lyrical ballad that could understandably be placed at any point of the album. However, this fact just makes it even more of a strategic choice–by having it be first, Green ensures that the knowledge of the hardship that came before the album’s production is known immediately. The follow-up track, “Underground” is warm, and is more quick in its rhythm in all instrumentals. Again, though, Green is skillful in his lyricism, structuring them like extended thoughts or stories, which happens throughout the album.

“Fucked it Up” and “A Little Mercy” are standouts of the album, perhaps because they mimic the slow and intimate stylization of “Meant to Be.” “Fucked it Up” was released as a single prior to The Love Still Held Me Near, and it fits rightfully in the album’s repertoire with its acoustic sounds that slowly build to Green’s repetitious chorus. “A Little Mercy”, on the other hand, is more intense in how strictly it adheres to a faster rhythm, plus its harmonies aren’t quite as warming as its predecessors as they provide a sense of quiet urgency. Similar to “Underground”, the lyrics seem to affect the composition of the track: at one point Green sings “We don’t need this pain and this suffering, no / just a little mercy” which could understandably have a significant impact on the musicality of the track. A running theme of The Love Still Held Me Near appears to be of the importance of the thematic elements of all its tracks, as if they’re real-life stories to be told.

The twelve-track album ends with “Begin Again”, a counterpart to “Meant to Be.” Green’s vocals are amplified over his backing instrumentals, emphasizing his lyricism, similar to prior tracks. This ending track is obviously a tale that runs true to Green’s life while making the album, as at the very beginning he mentions that “Seems my friends are all stuck in this passing strange / and there’s no relief in this dying game.” Unlike the rest of the album, this track is short and succinct, with its final words being “But there on the horizon, I can see the light.” When putting Green’s parting words into perspective, they are an optimistic, yet storied look on where City and Colour has taken him, and where it may bring him next.