The vocal break in "From This Valley" is unfucking real. It's such a shame that the partnership was unsalvageable.
Posted this in his own thread too, but John Paul will release his new album Beulah on Aug. 19. "The Martyr" is on streaming services now. It's good.
Both albums are so good, but especially the second one. Still one of my favorite records of the decade, outside of the last two tracks which kind of just feel tacked on.
was it just John Paul that left? I thought it was a mutual drifting apart? Joy's solo effort seemed to be pretty blatantly about being a woman going out on her own/doing her own thing.
From trying to follow it at the time, and watching interviews with Joy and whatnot, it seemed JP basically just said "I'm done/I can't go on", but none of the articles or interviews gave any indication as to what the reason was behind him not wanting to continue. I'm fairly certain Joy most certainly wanted The Civil Wars to continue, as the group was hugely successful. From what I gather, JP had a really young family at the time, and traveling so much, being away from home and all that, knowing how if they toured again behind the self-titled, he'd be away much longer, so probably didn't want to go down that road anymore
Well, Joy's husband was their manager or something, so he would go on tour with them and it wasn't as much of a strain for her. I think it just ended up being differing viewpoints on how much to tour and all that. I always wondered if there were romantic feelings there too, but that's pure speculation.
Still fucking love this album. I didn't have time to do a full 10-year piece on it (might still try to do that) but what I wrote about it on my end-of-the-decade list still sums up pretty well how I feel about this album.
Is this a label thing or is the band sanctioning this? This is huge if both Joy and John are on board with it.