Album Review: The Staves, All Now

“Unencumbered and fast as lightning”? The Staves have unbridled their fourth studio album All Now, and it’s a tongue-in-cheek critique of modern society delivered in two-part harmony. Sisters Jessica and Camilla Staveley-Taylor have re-emerged on the scene with a near palpable electric energy for what is their first project since reconfiguring as a sibling duo. Simultaneously genuine and sardonic, the new album is a bolder, brighter follow-up to their 2021 lockdown release of Good Woman.

While they are down in numbers, The Staves’ iconic harmonies are alive and well, their voices blending in the way that only siblings can. Despite losing the lower third of their band to motherhood, with Emily Staveley-Taylor deciding to step back while she raises her budding family, they are in excellent form.

Opening with the cinematic slow-burner and lead single ‘All Now’, the sisters waste no time in dredging up a world of smouldering passion and poignant social commentary, transitioning swiftly into the nostalgia-inducing ‘Fundamental Memory’ and the homey folk song ‘I’ll Never Leave You Alone’.

After scaling the emotional climax of ‘Great Wave’, listeners are given a glimpse of hope as the Staveley-Taylor sisters round out the album with a glimmering finale: on ‘You Held It All’, they finally embrace the freedom of letting go, unleashing an ocean of emotions.

8/10