Monday, November 9, 2009

'Tis the Swell Season!


STOP THE PRESSES!

I usually let it go a week, or 3 months, or so until I say anything on here. However, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, (you may recall weeping over their albums together as The Swell Season.. and let us not forget Once) released Strict Joy on the 27th, and subsequently completed my second, and maybe third, life. They got the name right, that's for sure. Their lyrics and melodies swell in the heart and what overflows can only be described as complete and unadulterated joy and sorrow and love and awe. It's quite impressive, really.
It's happy and heartful and souful and haunting; a candid shot of a heart on a sleeve. If you're truly aching for something that will catch all the fish hooks surrounding your heart and tug up the greatest and most genuine ardor lurking under the surface, Strict Joy will have you reaching for a Kleenex and and hand to hold. Still trying to figure out how to speak the fiery Goidelic language of love, maybe this Irishman will look at me with those deep pools of blue green eyes and sing In These Arms.... Sigh.

From Strict Joy:

1 comment:

Fire Lyte said...

Tell you what, dear one, I'm not an Irishman, but I have blue eyes and I can carry a tune if you give me a bucket to do so. I shall take you to one of our many old haunts and sing some excellent, trite, pop catastrophe while we reminisce about all the once-was's and the what-ifs and the OMG's of the past few years.

I miss you and love you and hold you close to my innermost heart!