The Swell Season - Strict Joy

The Swell Season will forever be the duo that started life on the cinema screens in charming independent Irish film ’Once’, and they have that films subsequent audience adoration and Oscar glory to thank for their own success. Granted, it’s not entirely their fault. Who can blame them for riding the waves of the worldwide love that poured out for ‘Once’? Why wouldn’t Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová have toured the world extensively on the back of a film in which they effortlessly stole hearts left, right and centre as they themselves fell for each other on and off the screen.

The world have screamed for more from cinemas best loved onscreen couple since Harry met Sally, so Frames frontman Hansard and Czech pianist Irglová simply given them that. Unfortunately Strict Joy, the pair’s third album doesn’t give a whole lot more and one can’t help but feel that maybe the joy of The Swell Season should’ve been left on the silver screen.

Indeed Strict Joy may leave you wondering whether you actually ever actually really liked The Swell Season in the first place or were just taken in by the incredible love story. Sure they write passable, nice sounding songs that would fit in perfectly at the dinner table of any Guardian reader, but where their Once soundtrack might have had its weak points, it had the film to back them up. Sadly Strict Joy doesn’t have a bigger picture to provide distraction.

‘Feeling The Pull’ is light, breezy and nice, but largely boring and comes to an end that will leave listeners just shrugging shoulders. ‘Fantasy Man’, similarly, passes by almost unnoticed. And sadly it doesn’t end there, ‘The Rain’s efforts to sound urgent miss the mark by sounding rushed and unfinished and uncomfortable duet ‘Love That Conquers’ feels like a aural lie given that the pair are no longer together.

The album’s only saving grace comes in the shape of the illustrious ‘I Have Loved You Wrong’, which, given the history of the pair, really strikes a rather strong and resonating emotional chord. Irglová throws her heart upon her beaten sleeve as she lets her glowing voice shine throughout, with Hansard supplying only the lightest of vocal backing. But it’s too little too late to save ‘Strict Joy’ from being yet another middle-of-the-road acoustic romp that brings nothing new to the table for both the genre and the band.