Forward by The Swell Season
'Forward' by The Swell Season
Whatever romance they shared and whatever tears they shed after, Irish musician Glen Hansard and Czech musician Markéta Irglová began the Swell Season as collaborators and friends, and it is as collaborators and friends that they’ve returned to the Swell Season with the duo’s third official full-length, Forward.
It follows the second, Strict Joy, by 16 years, although she has appeared on his solo albums and the two have played occasional shows together. And “the blows of what happened to happen” (to quote poet Philip Larkin) fade, almost invisibly, into the mature comforts of the eight songs here.
Those comforts rest primarily in Hansard and Irglová’s particular talents: his for soulfulness steeped in classic Van Morrison and folk melodicism near the tradition plumbed by Richard Thompson; hers for crystalline piano technique and a heart brimming with the stateliness and starkness of central-European classical music.
Their talents coalesce into thoughtful and dignified pop, exemplified by the opening track, “Factory Street Bells,” in which Hansard’s careworn voice and simply strummed acoustic guitar draw strength and elevation from an increasingly elaborate arrangement of strings, keys, and backing vocals.
In “Pretty Stories,” Irglová sings with the steadiness and softness of a mother soothing a child after a nightmare awakening, albeit while floating within a waltzing lullaby much richer than could be summoned by a music box.
That richness owes a lot to producer Sturla Mio Thorisson, Irglová’s Icelandic husband. With ears attuned as much to Hansard as to his wife, he brings a light Stax touch to the brass of “Stuck in Reverse,” leaves aching spaces for tension in the Nick Drake power of “A Little Sugar,” and adds grace to “People We Used to Be” without dampening the duet’s drama.
Forward ultimately testifies to the bond creativity can form. For Hansard and Irglová, artistic respect outlasts romantic love.
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The Swell Season will perform July 15 Riverside
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