"...emotional and more raw and more honest than even anything we did on Barton Hollow." - Joy Williams

i could not agree more. 

the civil wars won me over with their lyrics and sound when i heard their in studio performance on live 100.5. they sang poison & wine and falling. i took the long way home that night just so i could hear them sing and cry. it was simple. it was beautiful. that night i started all my research on them but couldn't find much. long story short their first album came out and i had it on repeat for weeks. then a few of us went to see them live for my 22nd birthday. yep, emotional roller coaster. they know how to suck you in and keep you on that emotional roller coaster the entire show. we met them after. what lovely people. after that i could not wait for their second album. fast forward to finding out they were taking a break. NOOOOO. i was so upset because their music is delightful. then there was a light at the end of the tunnel - a new album to drop late in the summer and a new single. i posted about the one that got away. i loved it. then they started sharing other songs from the album. perfect. 

last saturday i streamed the entire album via itunes and wrote down some random thoughts i had as i listened. a few of the things i said were things joy said about the album. i remember listening to the lyrics and thinking to myself, "these are intense, personal, heart wrenching lyrics. they are being way more vulnerable and raw this album. brilliant." the next thing that stood out was the fact it's definitely more produced than the first album but in a tasteful way. some artists will do an album and not venture out from what the sounded like because people really enjoyed the first album. some artists do and it's a train wreck. the civil wars successfully ventured away from the simple sounds on barton hollow on some of their new tracks. and it's amazing. 

my favorite track? so far it's track 3 - same old same old. it's that harmony and simple strumming of the guitar that sucked me in a couple of years ago. and the lyrics. oh my word. i can't even handle them. they're so raw and real. beautiful. it's just all around a beautiful song.

with that, my friends, i highly recommend purchasing the civil wars self titled album.