My Sister, My Brother can trace its origin story to a pre-pandemic songwriter’s retreat. Garrison Starr and Sean McConnell, both accomplished solo artists, met at the event and walked away with the song “Nothing Without You,” as well as a desire to keep working together. So, they did – enough to put out a five-track EP in 2020.
Three years and a global pandemic later, the duo is back with the aptly named follow-up, II. Across seven new songs, Starr and McConnell deliver the same bittersweet songs brimming with lush, brilliant harmonies. The album’s opening track is also the first single; “Cry Me a River is one of the few songs here that starts off with piano but it’s also easily the best track the two have written so far. It’s earnest without coming off corny and achingly beautiful. Elsewhere, the band moves from folk to straight-ahead rock on “Another Life,” while “My Sister, My Brother” sounds like a musical thesis for the band. “More Than You Could Give” and “Shelter” put the spotlight on the band’s deft knack for writing about heartbreak and resilience, while the closing track, “Maybe There Are Angels” finds McConnell taking the lead on the heartache on one of the most powerful tracks here.
The album came shortly after travel restrictions were lifted after the COVID lockdowns when Starr hunkered down with McConnell for a week at his Silent Desert Studio and hammered out this new record. “When we started writing and especially when we started singing together, it was like, ‘Wow. This is not normal. This feels very natural,’” McConnell says. “It feels like singing with a sibling you’ve sung with for a long time. Very quickly, it became a special collaboration.” And those harmonies are undeniable. The two have locked into a sound that is impossible to ignore.
II proves the band’s initial offering was far more than beginner’s luck but was true songwriter chemistry and one that deserves a proper full-length album.
