The Swell Season - Music (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova)

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Customer Reviews of The Swell Season

Reader
Madrid, Spain
9th December 2007

Wonderful
Well-crafted songs, an expressive voice, wonderful harmonies, thoughtful lyrics and a lightness of touch on this beautiful collection of acoustic-based melodies. Wonderful.

Reader
Madrid, Spain
9th December 2007

Wonderful
Well-crafted songs, an expressive voice, wonderful harmonies, thoughtful lyrics and a lightness of touch on this beautiful collection of acoustic-based melodies. Wonderful.

C. O'Brien
Scotland, UK
24th June 2007

Frames frontman's side project is a thing of simple beauty
Recorded in six days during time away from his multi-platinum Irish band the Frames, The Swell Season - named after a book by Czech writer Josef Skvorecky - is in many ways a companion piece to the band's recent album, The Cost.

Fine though that album was, this is plainly a case of the pencil sketches outclassing the oil paintings. The two albums do share two songs in common, the surging, poignant Falling Slowly and the rather less memorable When Your Mind's Made Up - and it's immediately apparent that these spare, acoustic arrangements serve the emotional content more powerfully than the firepower of a full band.

That may because the subject matter of these songs is highly personal, recording the death throes of love - or it may simply betoken the general cultural movement away from the sturm und drang of band performances in favour of more simple and intimate acoustic settings. Hansard has largely abandoned his rock star identity in his native Ireland in favour of a simpler life in Prague, and here he collaborates with Czech singer and pianist Markéta Irglová and string players Marja Tuhkanen and Bertrand Galen. It's not surprising to learn that Brian Eno told Hansard to release the album just as it was, raw and rough-mixed.

The standout track here is perhaps the simplest of all. Leave begins with Hansard's voice and guitar, a low-key farewell to a departing lover which accelerates into a performance of untrammelled passion so violent it leaves the listener in shock. Almost as powerful is The Moon, a Radiohead-esque hymn to silence which provides, along with the frozen finality of Alone Apart, the last movement in this romantic tragedy.

as published at subba-cultcha.com

dance phenom
Dublin
27th December 2006

In an O mold...
The Swell Season is Glen Hansard, lead singer of the frames, first "solo" venture, this album was a collaboration between himself and Marketa Irglova a Czech singer. The title "the swell season" was taken from the book of the same name by Josef Skvorecky the czech writer, who Hansard is a devoted fan, he sent the album to Brian Eno who had been a distant adviser for sometime, he had been trying to get him to record the frames for years, he got back to him on hearing it and advised they do no more more mixing and fixes, that it sounded finished to him. so they left it, raw and roughly mixed. And what are the results.....?

Well Its hard not to draw comparisons to Damien Rice's O,its a deeply personal record, the lyrics for the most part paint the full spectrum of the ups and downs of falling in love and breaking up. I think its fair to say that the lows are covered with more depth(sorry, terrible pun).

Marketa Irglova might as well be Lisa Hannigan, she has that rare lovely gentle voice and it compliments Hansards rough passionate voice perfectly. She adds some lovely subtle touches on piano aswell as her own track piano solo track, the Swell Season. THe tracks are also coloured by strings,sparingly, just as in Rices solo effort.

But its HAnsards lyrics and delivery that stand out, theres not a bad song here, every one has something distinct but personally "Sleeping", "This Low" and "Leave" are my stand out tracks, Lyrics like "And how in the world did you come, to be such a lazy love" really will break the heart.

Its a measure of Hansards talent that given the bare minimum of resources and without thinking much about it, hes made a record that eclipses any album hes made with the Frames. If you remotely enjoyed Damien Rices O, I guarentee you will like this too!