Swell Season - Strict Joy

  by Benjamin Howarth

published: 7 / 11 / 2009

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Review

Even though pop music has reached an age where it can claim a pension and a free bus pass (unless Shadow Chancellor George Osborne succeeds in raising the retirement age, and makes it wait an extra year), it still has the ever-probing eye of a young whippersnapper for new styles, recycled trends and bold fashions. What place, then, for artists who offer merely a cultured take on well-worn and much admired musical forms, rather than showy technical dexterity or thematic innovation? Glen Hansard is one such artist. He is a fairly conventional songwriter, a moderate guitarist and a reasonable singer. His musical influences seem commonplace - Dylan, Van Morrison, Nirvana, Bob Marley, U2. And yet, I much prefer his music to the conceptual and (allegedly) intellectual offerings generally championed by the majority of my colleagues in the online music press. Hansard’s career in music would be entirely unremarkable, were it not for the fact that he himself is rather remarkable. He left school in his early teens to busk around Dublin, determined to make music his life. Having formed the Frames in the early 1990s, he skippered them through severed relationships with two major labels and wild geographical fluctuations in fame and recognition (until very recently, the UK has been almost totally indifferent). All this has been bookended by appearances in two films - Hansard can be spotted as the guitarist in 'The Commitments' and busks as the leading man in the sleeper-hit award winner 'Once'(earning an Oscar for Best Original Song in the process). Film star he may well be, but it is as a performing musician where Hansard has really shone. On stage, he plays a duel role as both a passionate evangelist for his songs and an honest chancer with a roguish twinkle in his eye. In this setting, the simple call-and-response melodies of the Frames’ earliest albums became anthems, sealing the band’s status as one of Ireland’s best loved. Only since 2005 has his studio work truly matched up to the performance as seen in the flesh. The Swell Season begun life as a side project to the Frames, as Hansard paired up with Czechoslovakian pianist Marketa Irglova to record a set of ten acoustic ballads over four days. These songs then found a second life when they made up much of the soundtrack to ‘Once’. Hansard has clearly decided to maintain this fruitful partnership with Irglova (his off-screen girlfriend, as well as his 'Once' co-star) rather than return to his old band, but has also recruited the remaining members of the Frames to assist with the second Swell Season album. ‘Strict Joy’ maintains the high standards established on the Swell Season’s debut and on the (final?) Frames album, ‘The Cost’. It ends up combining the most appealing aspects of both; the light melodies and homemade charm of the Swell Season, the epic sweep and slyly adventurous accompaniments of the Frames. At times in the past, Hansard has conceded that his perfectionism has proven a hindrance. That was certainly the case when the Frames recorded ‘Fitzcaraldo’ in 1996, burying potentially classic songs under laboured arrangements. That demon appears to have been slain for good, now. The difference between the early Frames albums and ‘Strict Joy’ is the difference between attention-to-detail and overwork. Notwithstanding the fact that there are a succession of lovely melodies on this album, it is often the arrangements of the songs that offers the most pleasure. A double bass and a lilting Spanish guitar add sparkle to the sleepy ballad, ‘Paper Cup’, without disturbing its easy charm, while there is something of David Gilmour in the guitar work that accompanies the opening track, ‘Low Rising’. Irglova is very much the junior member of this partnership, but her harmonies are an essential component, especially on ‘The Verb’, where her contribution forms an neccessary counterpoint to what would otherwise have been a generic rocker. She also contributes two downbeat, lovelorn ballads - the second of which, ‘I Have Loved You Wrong‘ builds to a gorgeous conclusion and is by-far the best evidence of her songwriting ability yet recorded. ‘Strict Joy’ emerges as a triumph, total vindication of Hansard’s decision to prioritise music over film, and within that the Swell Season over the Frames. Hansard remains reliable, likeable and seemingly ordinary - and is enjoying the golden moments of his career at a time when many might have considered calling time on it.

Track Listing:-

1 Low Rising
2 Feeling The Pull
3 In These Arms
4 The Rain
5 Fantasy Man
6 Paper Cup
7 High Horses
8 The Verb
9 I Have Loved You Wrong
10 Love That Conquers
11 Two Tongues
12 Back Broke

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