The Swell Season's Strict Joy is a fantastic labor of love lost

Grade: 9/10

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Listen to “High Horses” from Strict Joy

Strict Joy, as a concept album, may be the most moving, musical composition that the music industry will behold all year. Chronicling the aftermath of a torrid love affair between ex-lovers Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, it is Joy’s longing effect that make it both epic and heartbreaking.

The duo’s first outing, the Once soundtrack, found a couple falling hopelessly in love and critics simply couldn’t resist the simple, romantic whirlwind set to film. After both acting in the indie-flick, and composing the official soundtrack, the Swell Season were immediately heralded as media darlings from the underground. However, after eventually winning an Oscar for best original song, the doomed tragedy of a Shakespearean sonnet would lead the two to begin crafting the forelorn melodies of 2009′s Joy.

It isn’t so much the lyrics or even the composition (which is raw yet flawless) that moves Strict Joy along; it is the very shakiness and sincerity of Hansard’s voice. Commanding most of the lead-vocal duties, his voice echoes and pops through an impressive range. Layred over blues-ballads and math-rock movements, Hansard’s focus is apparent . . . it’s a genuine love for the person he’s with . . . or was with.

Irglova’s voice matches his with a quiet, fragility, that presses on over delicate, sparse melodies. As a listener, there is very little you can do but be enthralled during tracks like “High Horses” where in the building breakdown, you can all but imagine the two staring at eachother through a studio window, absorbing the effect of the lyrics on their own personal life. Not unlike that of The Decemberists, The Swell Season hold both a literary presence but a simplicity that is unrivaled in concept.

The album is a never-ending grasp at a doomed relationship that, at it’s very inception, seemed perfect on every account. As it swirls through the ebb-and-flow of drinking, isolation, redemption and vocal weariness, it comes to a stunning, fragile conclusion fit only for cinema’s best love-affairs.

The album leaves us wanting more . . . much much more . . . as it tears at the very essence of love and loss. It is times like these that art imitating life is far more compelling than the opposite.