REVIEW: CITY & COLOUR - THE LOVE STILL HELD ME NEAR

4/5

Dallas Maverick.

Colour me impressed, my near and dear. Green with envy. Dallas is back like J.R. out the shower, and it's his best shot yet. Dallas (City) Green (and Colour) means so much to me and my friends. The Canadian singer/songwriter 'Coming Home' has had his baseball tour tees passed amongst friends, plate to plate. The stellar 'Sometimes' debut of this "simple man" from Alexisonfire who felt "uneasy" putting out solo work under the name Dallas Green (hence the moniker City & Colour) and its amazing album artwork is even inked on my good friend's arm. Permanent like it was 'Meant To Be'. And it all is on the grand opening to 'The Love Still Held Me Near', Green's seventh seal and first album since 2019's pre-pandemic 'A Pill For Loneliness' recovery. It's clear to hear, the love never left. Still for the city like a Mavs away jersey, live in living colour. 

Going 'Underground' with a big beard and hair to match that Lebowski cardigan. To begin the refreshing showers of April after the madness of March, Dallas' album really ties a New Music Friday together that features new albums from the Boygenius ('The Record') supergroup of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus and an 'Estate Sale' of the great Tyler The Creator's Grammy award-winning LP, 'Call Me If You Get Lost'. Without the city and minus his colour, we may not have amazing acts like Justin Vernon's Bon Iver and all that skinny love. Heavenly father, that would be a shame. Now Green's day is one of heavenly feeling like lying in your lover's arms at night, or Tyler creating new jams ('Heaven To Me') based on John Legend classics. He talks about how he 'F##### It Up' on a break-up ballad. But his music does nothing but make you love again in this woeful world. 

"Awake, awake, my darling/The moon is down/The waves, the waves, they are crashing all around/What would you do?/What would you say, if I was gone?/Losing your breath/Toil and sweat/Just hold on", he sings on 'TLSHMN's' titanic title-track. There's beauty in his poetry. Here's hoping my friend has room on his other arm. I want my t-shirt back! Show 'A Little Mercy' like the standout track and mercy, mercy, me like The Strokes covering the greatest of Marvin, lord knows this is one of or generation's greats at his most highest point. "'Cause we don't need this pain and this suffering, no/We don't need this pain and this suffering, no/Just a little mercy/No/No, no." Sing it again like a prayer in congregation. All until we no longer have to. 

This Maverick goes hard for the' Things We Choose To Care About' and 'After Disaster' he brings healing. And 'Without Warning' he soldiers on like a chorus of an army. "But darling, you know I ain't got the answers/But I sure as hell won't surrender/It's gonna be you and me 'til the end of time/Though we lost it all without warning/After dark always comes morning/You know we can make it one more night." This is the kind of love that lasts, not those who too shall come to pass when what they hold near, just isn't as dear. Dallas Green already had a definitive discography. But now with this, City & Colour can act up alongside Alex's fire. Dominant like Doncic, it's a 'Hard, Hard Time' for the man who puts on his hard hat for his city (actually the maple red of Saint Catharines, up north in Ontario). Reminding us of the boss Springsteen time when songwriters worked with bootstraps and little more than some lyrics to go in the back pockets of the blue jeans Lana once sang about. 

We had Del Rey ('Did You Know That There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd'), the future of BTS Jimin's 'Face' (EP), and Fall Out Boy ('So Much (For) Stardust') for your early 2000s, Fuelled By Ramen, last week. But this 'Love' is the ultimate, nuanced nostalgia. One of biblical proportions on the epic 'The Water Is Coming' that comes in like Noah's tide. "The water is coming/Will we hold back the rising tide?/The water is coming/Can we survive mankind?/Pray for redemption/Gnash your teeth and gnaw it off at the bone/You keep on knocking/Turn your back, there ain't no one home." Two by, or two-for-two, there is nothing bigger or better in this set. Even when our man 'Bows Down To Love' like getting down on one knee on the penultimate track's precursor of things to come in matrimony. 

Getting to grips with grief and turning pain into power Dallas Green learns to 'Begin Again' like we all must do someday on the last word of this weary but wonderful record. "They say joy will come along with the morning sun/But it's starless tonight, and this grief it weighs a ton/And I know this world was more than you could bare/So save me a seat at your table, I will meet you there." Music like this will make you shed a tear in concert with being the perfect score to soundtrack movies. But this is much more potent and profound than that. The latest City & Colour album is Dallas Green at his most personal and perhaps most powerful yet. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Playlist Picks: 'A Little Mercy', 'The Water Is Coming', 'Begin Again'.