City And Colour

City and Colour took shape in the late 2000s as the solo vehicle for Canadian musician Dallas Green, allowing the singer/songwriter to explore a more reflective, acoustic direction. While fronting the Ontario post-hardcore outfit Alexisonfire, Green balanced both endeavors until the band entered hiatus in 2012. Already a Juno Award recipient for the 2007 City and Colour debut, he devoted himself entirely to solo pursuits and delivered successive chart-topping albums that broadened his sound well past its early acoustic confines. After the well-received 2015 release If I Should Go Before You, he embarked on an extended tour and issued a live recording before returning to the studio for the more atmospheric 2019 album A Pill for Loneliness. Following Alexisonfire’s 2022 reunion, Green revisited his solo project to work through the loss of a close friend, resulting in the poignant 2023 record The Love Still Held Me Near.

Born in St. Catharines, Ontario, Green first played with Helicon Blue before helping establish Alexisonfire toward the end of 2001. Lacking substantial radio exposure, the group cultivated a devoted audience through intense live performances, and its 2004 follow-up Watch Out! entered the Canadian Top Ten. Late that year Green introduced the inaugural City and Colour EP The Death of Me, which he sold at initial solo dates. The full-length Sometimes arrived near the close of 2005; he promoted it with a Canadian trek and a series of sold-out U.K. shows. Certified platinum in 2006, Sometimes earned a Juno for Alternative Album of the Year in 2007. City and Colour Live appeared in March 2007, and the next year brought Green’s second solo effort Bring Me Your Love, featuring contributions from the Tragically Hip’s Gordon Downie as well as Ian Romano and Spencer Burton of Attack in Black. Produced by Alex Newport, whose credits include Mars Volta and Two Gallants, the 2011 album Little Hell marked Green’s first solo Canadian chart-topper. Alexisonfire concluded activities after a farewell tour in 2012, leaving Green free to focus solely on City and Colour. He reentered the studio late that year to cut The Hurry and the Harm, issued in June 2013 and again reaching number one in Canada. Alongside a collaborative project with pop artist P!nk under the name You+Me, Green joined Alexisonfire for several summer 2015 performances. In July he confirmed completion of his fifth LP, If I Should Go Before You, which he tracked with his road band and released through Dine Alone Records that October. Early 2017 saw the self-produced Peaceful Road/Rain EP, followed in 2018 by the live collection Guide Me Back Home drawn from the previous year’s Canadian dates. October 2019 brought the sixth studio album Pill for Loneliness, another Canadian chart leader that ventured into richer, more expansive sonic territory. Alexisonfire resurfaced the same year with several standalone singles.

Entering the new decade, Green continued dividing his attention between the two projects. Under the City and Colour banner he issued Low Songs, a two-track homage to the Minnesota indie band Low. Alexisonfire returned with Otherness in 2022, their first full-length in thirteen years. Green’s subsequent solo statement, the cathartic 2023 album The Love Still Held Me Near, addressed both the death of his closest friend and the end of his marriage.