The Swell Season’s memorable chemistry reignites in Forward

Forward

The Swell Season (Masterkey Sounds, 2025)

It’s been close to 20 years since the release of Once, the Irish drama/musical about two struggling musicians whose love story is told on the 10 tracks of the film’s folky soundtrack album. As the story goes, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová fell in love while they were making the film, which gave the music they cowrote its tenderness and vulnerability. (Their song “Falling Slowly” won an Oscar in 2007.) Hansard was well into his musical career by this point and a founding member of the Irish rock band The Frames. Musically, Irglová was just beginning, but they clicked personally and artistically. As The Swell Season, they’ve only released two albums since their eponymous debut. Forward was a long time coming (16 years!), as the couple have long since split up, grown their solo careers, and moved on to other relationships. Has their chemistry survived? Truly, yes.

The songs they’re writing now still have the haunting quality that defined their sound 20 years ago. But now there’s something deeper, the product of the lives they’ve lived since then. The duet “People We Used to Be” is a reflection on their evolution as friends and collaborators, nostalgic but frank. Their voices rise as they sing a kind of vow: “I will not stand by and watch this fire / Burn down everything we worked so hard to build / If you keep willing those flames to go higher / You know they will.”

On “Hundred Words,” the album’s last track, their optimism coasts through their brilliant harmonies and builds with what sounds like a choir of children’s voices: “Don’t give up, don’t give up / Don’t stop believing, don’t stop believing / Keep the faith, keep the faith / Don’t close the book, just keep on reading.”

That last line is the anthem of this duo. They’ve got plenty left to say. But hopefully it won’t be another 16 years before we hear it.