The Staves release “You Held It All,” their first new music since the release of 2021’s Good Woman LP, today, September 14, 2023. You can hear it below and here. “You Held It All” is also the group’s first recording as the duo of Jessica and Camilla Staveley-Taylor, following their sister and bandmate Emily Staveley-Taylor’s decision to step back after the birth of her first baby (she has recently had a second child, too).

“You Held It All” was produced by John Congleton in Los Angeles. Congleton, who also helmed production for Good Woman, assisted in creating the much more live, spontaneous feel to the studio process that the Staveley-Taylors were keen to investigate.

“‘You Held It All’ is a song about understanding, and the knots we tie ourselves in when we don’t express our truth; and how much power and freedom there can be when we do,” The Staves explain.

The past few years have been a period of significant change for The Staves, with not only a line-up shift, but also other enduring and welcome alterations in their lives, for good and for bad. Such life experiences have unsurprisingly found their way into the lyrics, too (now written by the two sisters, rather than among all three).

Since 2012, when The Staves first introduced themselves with those crystalline three-part harmonies and their lilting folk-informed songcraft, the ‘classic’ Staves sound has also undergone subtle but noteworthy change, and with “You Held It All, the band enters a new chapter entirely. What remains, though, is their ear for captivating melody and verse, as recently featured on BBC Radio 6 Music’s Lauren Laverne show, in a segment called “6 Music Goes Back to School” about harmonizing.