Tragedy has a way of bringing out the best in songwriters. That's certainly the case for Dallas Green on The Love Still Held Me Near, his seventh studio album under the moniker City and Colour. The 12-track set, arguably the most sonically aggressive and stylistically expansive outing in the City and Colour canon, comes from what Green has acknowledged as the most difficult time in his life. Within the span of a year, he lost two crucial figures – his cousin Nicholas Osczcypko, with whom he played in his first band, and longtime friend, City and Colour producer and engineer Karl Bareham, whose drowning death in Australia while on tour was the direct impetus for The Love Still Held Me Near’s first single, "Meant to Be". At the time Green was also separated from his wife of (then) 11 years and felt their marriage was "seemingly over.” Green feels those inspirations were vehicles to push The Love Still Held Me Near in its own direction of exploration and discovery.