Album Review- Swell Season "Strict Joy"

by: Johnathan Mayfield

I first discovered the Swell Season while watching the motion picture ONCE, a beautiful tale of two street musicians who create an album together before going the separate ways. The two musicians are played by the front runners of the Swell Season, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. Throughout the entire film you can feel the chemistry between the two through their performance and the music. This is something that the academy also recognized when the two received an Oscar for best Original Song in a Motion Picture ("Falling Slowly") in 2007.

The Swell Season releases its third studio album with Strict Joy, a somber but entrancing album that shows that these people really know what creates great music. The album takes the very soft spoken Irglova, and the very passionate Hansard, and places them together again for something that is beautiful and mesmerizing. Throughout the entire album, the harmonies created by the two musicians produce feelings of splendor and serenity. Some tracks pulse and drive in subtle way that is like a fast paced soporific ("Feeling the Pull," "High Horses"), while other tracks produce a somber magnificence that you cannot help to listen to ("In These Arms, Back Broken").

I have to say one of my favorite parts of Swell Season has to be the vocals of Market Irglova. Her voice seems to be the embodiment of some divine being and could very well bring tears to the masses. She produces this delicate majesty through the gift of her tone and song, which produces a feeling that everything in this messed up world could be solved through her voice("Fantasy Man"). I was amazed with the album and pleased with the Swell Season. 8.4 of 10

Download: “In These Arms”, “Fantasy Man”, “Feeling the Pull”