Customer Reviews

Strict Joy

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Being a huge Frames/Swell Season fan, I've been anticipating this album for a long while now. I can say with a sigh of relief that I'm not disappointed. I really really enjoy "Strict Joy". I'd heard a lot of the songs live, and of course they are better than the studio versions, but it's not really fair to compare.

That being said, here is what I thought:

Low Rising - This is a very strong opening number. People say that it's really Van Morrisonesque, and I suppose that I'd agree with that. Glen's voice on this track is great, and it's got a great hook. My only problem with the song, is the production. I feel like it's been bogged down with too much drone. I think that the song would be better without the brass, and with more guitar. Still, a solid and catchy opening number. 8.5/10

Feeling The Pull - This is a great song. Very folky, with an old time optimistic feel. It's catchy, nicely written, and also it's very short and sweet. It retains the energy of Low Rising and focuses it in a very different way. I do however, miss the moments when played live Glen goes into a nice falsetto and lightly strums the guitar. However, the song is still great without it, and doesn't really suffer without it's inclusion. 8.5/10

In These Arms - Beautiful song, with beautiful lyrics. Glen's vocals are hushed, which makes the song sound almost like a lullaby. The harmonies and piano bits provided by Marketa are gorgeous. The songs beauty is in its simplicity. It's very clean, dark, and yet hopeful at the same time. Fantastic tune. 9/10

The Rain - This song to me, is very Frames reminiscent. It's dark, drum driven, has a prevalent bass part, and it makes nice use of the violin. It's a bit repetitive, but the song itself isn't that long, so you don't get a sense of a one minute song left on repeat. It's a nice tune, not one of the standouts, but by no means bad. 7/10

Fantasy Man - This is a Marketa driven song, and it's great. It has an old medieval feel to it, and almost seems like it is a cover song from the olden days. The harmonies are fantastic, and really shows how wonderfully Glen and Marketa can blend their voices. Glen's part is very soft and understated, yet works extremely well. This song really shows off Marketa's talent. Her voice is like a warm fire on a cold rainy day. Very nice, soft, and welcoming. 9.5/10

Paper Cup - This song has very nice lyrics, and an almost Spanish-like feel to it, which is provided by the lead guitar. It's a soft song, and the lyrics while a tad bit sappy, work well and in no way sound cliched. It's a nice tune with a nice appeasing melody. 8/10

High Horses - The is by far the heaviest song on the album. It's a great throwback to The Frames, and sounds like it could have been off of one of their albums. The song becomes eerily quiet about 3/4 in, and then builds from there into a nice rocking ending. The effect is very nice, and it ends on a chilling note. 8/10

The Verb - This is by far one of my favorite songs on the album. Upon first listen, I wasn't sure if I liked it overall, but I was instantly drawn to the insanely catchy chorus. The more that I listened, the more I realized how layered and truly beautiful the song is. There are so many little aspects of the song that you do not catch on first listen, and the melody gets even more beautiful as the song continues. The climax of the song is met with Glen singing the chorus and being overlapped by Marketa singing her own thing, and the result is a gorgeous blending of melody and emotion that is like candy to the ears. 10/10

I Have Loved You Wrong - This song is so soothing, that you can't help but close your eyes and become engulfed in the music. The enchanting melody is only helped by the subtle instruments carrying the song along like a leaf on a gentle breeze. This is one of the best songs that the group has written, and Marketa's voice suits it perfectly. The song ends with a heartwarmingly angelic harmony between Marketa and Glen, and it is perhaps one of the most beautiful things that I've ever heard. One line is repeated many times, and with each repeat, you can feel it tugging more and more at your heart. 10/10

Love That Conquers - This song sounds like an old bardic folk song. It features some nice little harmonies, but the song overall tends to become a bit repetitive. However, the song is very nice. It's a great song to just relax and listen to. A very safe song with a simple yet nice tune. 7.5/10

Two Tongues - To me, this song also plays very much like a Frames song. I enjoy the chorus, and I like the buildup to it. However, on song like this, I wish that Glen would display the beauty and raw power of his voice, because he stays mostly in his lower register. The piano part on this track is very nice at times, and it pierces through the guitar like a sword, which is welcoming. 8/10

Back Broke - This song is a fantastic way to end the album. It's a quiet song with beautiful lyrics. It's song with Glen hardly using his voice, which makes it all the more effective. Additionally, Marketa's piano bits are very nice, and Glen's soft voice soars over them. The song has a wonderfully dark vibe, reminiscent to a storm cloud just before the rain. It ends the album on a very high note. 9.5/10

Overall, Strict Joy is a true work of art. It seems to me that Glen Hansard walked into the studio and came out with a hybrid album that lays somewhere between The Frames and The Swell Season. The result of such an album, is a wonderful gem that any musician would be proud to add to their catalogue. When the album flies, it really soars. Sure, it may hit some turbulence along the way, but the ride for the most part is an extremely enjoyable experience. The original poem Strict Care, Strict Joy, said "The poet makes grief beautiful," and Glen and Marketa have truly achieved that. The album is a must-buy, and plays like a warm night sitting around the campfire with old friends playing music and telling stories. Buy the CD, close your eyes, and savor it.

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova return with The Swell Season 2.0 and there's no let down. At first listen, there's nothing as instantly catchy as the tunes from "Once" and their debut album. If you consider the fact that the tunes from those albums represent some of the finest highlights of Glen Hansard's career with The Frames, it's completely understandable. Even if their romantic relationship didn't survive staring at fame in the face, their creative muse did. They seem to have drawn on the end of their romance and the beginning of a different kind of friendship to craft the gentle sadness and cautious optimism that runs through this album. The lion's share of the credit still goes to Hansard but he makes good use of Irglova who's a stellar musician still developing her skills as a vocalist and songwriter. If you consider her age, she should be absolutely devastating as she gains experience. That doesn't even take into account that she was born to harmonize with Glen. Their voices were absolutely made for each other. Grab the deluxe edition and you've got a full length concert and dvd where Glen's skills as a front man are absolutely dazzling. I've heard some of the between song patter before and I'm not even tired of the storytelling yet.

I picked up the new The Swell Season CD today, called Strict Joy. I got the deluxe edition, which has a second CD of live tracks from the last couple of tours. A total of 32 tracks - 13 make up the new CD and 19 are live tracks.

A quick glance at the writing credits of the new songs betrays that this is more of a Glen Hansard album. Marketa Irgolva only has a couple of writing credits. But her voice and piano are very present, and the harmonies are still sweet.

The album opens with a couple of good, solid upbeat tunes (Low Rising and Feeling the Pull). Not until the third song (In These Arms) do we get a song that sounds like the Once soundtrack, with Irglova harmonizing with Hansard over soft acoustic progressions. These three songs were released over the last couple of months as singles on iTunes but this is the first time I had heard any of them.

The fourth song, The Rain, comes back up in tempo with full band and impassioned relationship-based lyrics from Hansard.

In fact, relationships seem to be the theme of this album and there doesn't seem to be any effort to hide the fact that it's a very Fleetwood Mac-ish break-up album. The songs are loaded with references to the on-again off-again nature of Irglova and Hansard's relationship. Lots of songs about longing, people.

But where the Once soundtrack and The Swell Season CD are mostly softer, acoustic based discs with a couple of rockers, Strict Joy is a better balance.

Not knowing anything at all about these two (except for the movie) when I saw them the first time live, they were mostly acoustic and quiet, which is what I kind of expected. The second time through, however, Hansard had most of his band The Frames with him, and they did lots of really upbeat, rocking numbers. Some of The Frames tunes like Fitzcarraldo were fairly face-melting. That rocking side of the band comes through more on this disc.

A good example is High Horses, which starts out as an arpeggiated, repeating piano riff but really takes off at the end with full band coming in and bringing the energy level waaaaay up. This one will be on par with Fitzcarraldo live. The Verb does something similar structurally, with some very nice call and response vocal trade offs and a great build at the end with a nice use of strings.

Irglova's two songs are strong. Fantasy Man is pretty obviously about Hansard and is well done, with dare I say an Eastern European vibe to it (it would make sense, since that is where she is from). I Have Loved You Wrong is the standout here. I remember seeing this one live and thinking, what the hell is this song? It's a very trancy song, with a repeating bass line and very tasty piano noodlings. But the repeating vocal bit that takes the song out was mind blowing live, and although it is understated on this version, the song is done really well on this disc. Might be her best song.

Suffice it to say, if you like the music from the movie Once, and/or the first Swell Season album, you'll love this. And if you dig The Frames, you'll probably like it too. I am still discovering that band, so I don't have a ton of insight there. But the new material picks up where the last left off, with enough familiarity to link it to the previous work but also with enough of an evolution so that you don't feel like you are listening to a re-hash.

There really isn't a bad track on the CD although the last two songs are a bit sleepy, although very pretty - especially the outro to Somebody Good, which closes the CD with some gorgeous vocal harmonies between Hansard and Irglova. A nice way to wrap up the CD.

And of course you get what amounts to a full live CD as a bonus of you get the deluxe edition. Which is nice.

I reviewed the CD and the last couple of Portland-area live performances on my blog at [...]. Check it out!

Who doesn't already know the charming story of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, the creative (and for a while, romantic) couple who acted and performed in that indie film gem from Ireland, "Once"? It was a bit of an underdog triumph when they won the "Best Song" Oscar last year for "Falling Slowly", arguably the best romantic ballad of the decade. Now they follow up that success with a new album under their collective name, The Swell Season. It's a more polished affair than either their debut album or the "Once" soundtrack, but it's also much more cohesive. You won't hear Hansard's raw, shouting vocals that punctuated the songs from "Once", but that's not a problem. This is definitely a mellower affair, and the songwriting is every bit as strong and more mature. It's not as cathartic as some of the songs from "Once", but it's still quietly moving.

The new album is great, but Amazon lists 20 songs for the second disc. It only has 14 songs on there, and the songs that were left off are the reason I bought the 3 disc set instead of just the Strict Joy cd.

I've been listening to "Strict Joy" continuously for the past week and find more to like about it every time. The genius lies in the poetry of the words, the emotion in the music, the raw feeling in the "story of two lovers who danced both edges of the knife". I know that artists of any kind find more inspiration when their own emotions are intense--such as those of falling in and out of love. Glen and Marketa have harnessed their emotions and channeled them into an album full of beautiful, bittersweet music. Marketa's voice is never more beautiful than when she sings "Fantasy Man" and "I Have Loved You Wrong". And what a way to end the latter song with the repitition of the same phrase "on my mind" over and over. Isn't that the way of love--not being able to get your lover (or former lover) out of your mind? Glen's voice is for the most part quieter and more gentle than in some of his previous songs. I think that "Back Broke" is one of the best songs on the album. The sadness, the hope, the acceptance are all tempered by the plaintive, heartbreaking melody of the violin as it brings the song and the album to an end. The lush background music and their combined voices on most of the songs show us that despite the failure of their romance, they still can make beautiful music together.

This is quickly becoming my favorite album even though I loved "Once" and the "Swell Season" albums. It will captivate you too from the first song until the last note.

This is without reservation my favorite album of all time. I would recomend this to anyone unreseveredly.

Strict Joy is an achievement. It chronicles every feeling of falling out of love; unexpected loneliness, second guessing yourself, blindly thinking you still have a chance, guilt, questioning life, wondering why it all had to happen, and at the end, acceptance, however bittersweet it may be. The music never condescends the listener with any sappy breakup songs that scream "poor me". It's more of an audio diary of the decline of the real relationship of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, and if any musicians these days know about catharsis, it's these guys. It also doesn't hurt that they're two of the best musicians working today, and they are a revelation when put together. As if they're already great enough when they're each on their own, there's nothing better than hearing these two harmonize.

The album begins with the sweeping, charming Low Rising, which I've loved to death since they performed it on the Tonight Show however many months ago. I have to say I like most live versions of this better than this studio version (partly because of the mix) but that doesn't change how good of a song it really is. Then the album has a two-song slump, which is the only low point of the whole album. No matter how many times I've tried to like Feeling the Pull, I just cannot. And In These Arms is better, but I really can't find anything to it; it just feels standard to me. But after this slump comes one of the best parts of the record, tracks 4-6. I can't explain how much I love all 3 of these songs. They of course all contribute to the scope of the full album, but if they were released on their own as an EP, it'd be one of my favorite EPs released by any band. High Horses isn't necessarily one of the best on the record, but it's a good song nontheless. After that, every track (and I mean every track) is golden, with the exhilirating The Verb being one of the very high points of the record (which actually isn't saying much, because nearly every song here is a high point of the record). Back Broke closes the album in a desperate, sad, and very real fashion, and if someone told me this was exactly how the couple ended their relationship, I wouldn't doubt them.

Buy Strict Joy. I might've given you some of the best advice you've heard in a while. This is worth your money, and much more. It's one of the most satisfying listening experiences I've had all year. If you like the music from Once, then I hope you'll like this; though keep in mind, those songs were about falling in love, and these songs are about falling out of it.

The cd simply doesnt do the band justice. They are something to be experienced "live". I just saw them in MIlwaukee on Nov. 1st. They were nothing short of spectacular. Of all the live shows I've seen,(I've seen my share), Iwould say that this ranks as the best. You have to experience the power of Glen's voice, and the subtleness of Mar's for yourself. A lot is lost in the translation to cd. I was especially touched when Mar started play "O Holy Night" on the piano, and then singing about half the song through with her incredible voice. The Frames are simply fantastic. The bass shook your bones, the drumming was spot on for the music, the violin solos masterful. Glen is the John Lennon of our generation. His songwriting talent, guitar mastery, vocal talent, and presence remind me very much of him. He has that who gives a ***k attitude. Someone interrupted him when he was talking, and he got very mad! He's a man who loves his music and won't take anycrap from nobody. You have to admire him for that. I enjoyed the fact that both the live cd and dvd were recorded in MIlw. at The Riverside. Marketa commented on how lovely a city Milwaukee was. She even woke early in order to walk by the river and Lake Michigan. These 2 belong together. And this cd clearly shows that.

We live in a veritable golden age of independent and folk musical artistry. From The Avett Brothers to Derek Webb to The Decemberists to Damien Rice to Colm Mac Con Iomaire to Iron & Wine (a few of my favorites from America and Ireland), the folk indie music scene is absolutely brilliant. Within this genre perhaps no artists write more heart-wrenchingly beautiful and emotionally raw music than the dynamic duo of Glenn Hansard and Markéta Irglová, also known as The Swell Season

To most readers, Hansard and Irglová will be best known and recognized as the stars of the wonderful modern musical, "Once". Filmed in Dublin over two and a half weeks at 130,000, "Once" is a beautifully executed story of love and friendship as expressed by the genuine, heart-felt music of The Swell Season. As a coming-out for Hansard and Iglová (although it must be said that Hansard had previously been in the entertaining Irish film "The Commitments" and has been performing as front-man for the Irish band The Frames for year) "Once" showed the kind of magic that can happen when two artists who were made for each other join forces to create something truly special.

It is obvious that Hansard and Irglová are at their artistic best when corroborating together. Their voices meld together in exquisite harmony in a fashion that is absolutely breath taking. Their chemistry is un-matched. They truly are each other's muse. It is precisely this chemistry (and emotional honesty for that matter) that is the true genius of "Once". The movie and the music is real, it is genuine and it is understandable and relatable. Watching "Once" is to forget that one is watching a movie. The viewer joins into the story with the characters, feeling what they feel and experiencing what they experience.

This honesty and chemistry is the same strength of "Strict Joy". A story of hurt, heartache and subdued joy, "Strict Joy" is beautifully written and performed. Communicating the many-faceted feelings of a relationship broken and bruised (but not completely finished), "Strict Joy" provides the listener with songs of hope ("Low Rising"), repentance ("I Have Loved You Wrong") and sorrowful frustration ("Two Tongues"), the album runs the gamut of experience and emotion.

Far from the raw, emotive energy of "Once" (most notably in the songs "When Your Mind's Made Up" and "Lies"), "Strict Joy" employs a more refined, mature and consistent introspection (ala "Falling Slowly"). Much of this musical maturation seems to be ground in the growing integration and skills of Irglová, specifically in the songs she writes and performs with Hansard. As for Hansard, he is as good in this album as he is with anything he writes. His transparent song crafting is infectious and his energy is revitalizing. He is one of the most gifted and experience songwriters in the indie music scene. Add the growing skills of Irglová and it is hard to imagine much of a creative limit for the duo.

The album's best moment is found in the song "I Have Loved You Wrong". Hopefully haunting, the song expresses a surprising sorrow for wrongs committed and a deep and abiding desire for reconciliation. Similar in tone and sound to the achingly lovely "The Hill" from "Once", "I Have Loved You Wrong" is Irglová at her best. The addition of Hansard's harmony at the close of the song is absolute dynamite and demonstrates just how perfectly their voices are suited for each other.

While not as strong or approachable as the soundtrack for "Once", "Strict Joy" is still a stellar effort by The Swell Season and a worthy addition to any music lover's library.