I Don’t Want to Fight but I’ll Fight For You if I Have To

What exactly is going on with The Civil Wars? The release the best debut album of the decade so far, start winning Grammy’s with Taylor Swift, then out of nowhere while on tour in Europe, they canceled the remainder of that tour and went on hiatus due to “internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition.” What!?! Despite the discord they managed to record another album (or two if you count the predominately instrumental soundtrack to A Place at the Table with T-Bone Burnett). The discord continued with the lack of promotion of the album which so far has only involved two interviews by Joy Williams and a music video which is just a bare bones behind the scenes recording the song. The other half of the duo, John Paul White, has yet to say anything on the album or pretty much everything since the dilution of the tour last year.

In the interviews, Joy continually says that if you want to know to the group, just listen to the new album. We got a sneak peak last month when the duo released the first single of the self titled sophomore album The One that Got Away. As in “I wish you were the one that got away.” It actually reminded me of I Got This Friend from the first album with the line “If the right one came along” and The One That Got Away is the dark twisted sequel to I Got This Friend. The One That Got Away is that dark and ominous. Sure most of their debut was very moody, but The One that Got Away made most of Barton Hollow sound like I Want You Back. The Jackson 5 version.

On first listen as the album as a whole, it is hard not to dwell on the “irreconcilable differences of ambition” part of the statement because it is very noticeable who much more of Joy is heard on the album with John Paul relegated to just harmonies on half of the tracks. It is easy to assume that Joy is the more “ambitious” at least in terms of output which is backed up by she is the only one currently doing press.

After the first single the best song on the album is Dust to Dust (which follows the equally troublingly titled Same Old Same Old). The song features the closest thing the group has ever done to a groove, and it is a slow groove that could have become a Middle School slow dance staple if the subject matter was not so depressing. And to emphasize just how darker this album is (aside from the eerie cloud of smoke on the cover) is the choice of cover last time around. As previously mention lat time out, they turned I Want You Back into a ballad. On The Civil Wars, the do opted for Disarm, the one of the angstiest of all the angsty Smashing Pumpkins song which children of the nineties will remember as the song where Billy Corgan screamed over and over again, “I used to be a little boy.” The Civil Wars stripped the song of any angst, and pretty much everything else but an acoustic guitar and turned it into the most haunting song in the short catalogue. Which is saying a lot.

Much like Fleetwood Mac Rumours, the music The Civil Wars made out of internal discord is heartbreakingly awesome (The One That Got Away even features a similar bass breakdown from The Chain). Hopefully much like Fleetwood Mac, The Civil Wars can find a way to continue to make great music together for another decade. Or three.

Song to Download – The One That Got Away

The Civil Wars gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.