The Staves: If I Was | Album Review

More than two years after their debut, Dead & Born & Grown, was released, and following it with non-stop touring, it soon became apparent to folk/pop sisters Emily, Jessica, and Camilla Staveley-Taylor that they had no ideas for their follow-up album.

Cue a trip to Justin Vernon’s remote Wisconsin studio, where the sisters toyed with ideas and began to construct a new batch of material.

Such solitude proved beneficial, for songs such as No Me No You No More, Let me Down, Don't You Call Me Anymore, and Sadness Don't Own Me highlight the emotional holes that occur when all you see day after day is one hotel room that looks like all the others.

Not that this is a self-indulgent on-the-road second album; rather it looks at the emptiness of unfulfilled relationships, and the sense that an unconventional life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

[ Olympia Theatre, Dublin ]

[ thestaves.com ]