The real beauty of Once (apart, obviously, from its Oscar and now Tony-Award winning songs) were the quiet, unspoken moments of emotional shorthand between Glen Hansard's lovelorn busker and Markéta Irglová's bruised expatriate—the stray looks, goofy smiles and wanting sighs that can carry an entire lifetime's worth of pain, hope, love and longing without ever making a sound. On the surface, Glen's debut solo album Rhythm and Repose (out June 19) is another collection of slow burning, gently brushstroked chamber folk tunes… yet in between the notes and lines, you can hear the coarse, raw sound of Glen's heart filling and breaking.
| Get Sad Real Quick With Glen Hansard's "Philander" Music Video |
Taking a moment away from The Frames and The Swell Season, Hansard (along with producer Thomas Bartlett) opts to dress his new songs with only the barest of essentials: a gently stirring string quartet here, a brief flourish of chaotic piano there. On opener "You Will Become," his lushly finger-picked guitar coils warmly over a busted keyboard and the hushed shriek of a lone violin. "In time, this won't even matter," he moans, "This chapter will be long in the grass / We'll talk about everything 'til it's easier / Your beauty is nothing compared to what you will become…" The album's various heartaches ("I don't want to lose you to some bullshit hurt that could've been helped," he pleads on the devastating "What Are We Gonna Do") appear heavy and often, offset only slightly by the rousing "High Hope" and shuffling Van Morrison-style grooves of "Love Don't Leave Me Waiting."
| Feel Good Real Quick With Glen's "Love Don't Leave Me Waiting" Video |
Despite its blatantly painfully undertones, the album never appears to wallow— even its darkest moments (ex: the jazzy, Krautrock-tinged "Talking With The Wolves") are treated with almost overwhelmingly intimate warmth. Listen closely and you'll hear raspy gravel behind Glen's impassioned wails; the buzzing of guitar frets and coarse scrape of violin bows. The record's coarse sonic palette works wonders with its dynamic restraint; these songs, raw and real as they are, prefer to simmer rather than soar. You can practically hear the hurt dripping from each line of "Philander," yet its palpable malaise is never allowed to explode: Glen dampens his heartache under the ominous plucking of upright bass strings, beneath the clamor of frenzied pianos.
The temptation to connect the lyrical dots between Hansard's humble despair and the now-married Irglová is certainly there ("I never left you," he whimpers on "Races," "You never let me go…"), but the hurt feelings beneath these songs run too deep to be about one person, one time or one place. More repose than rhythm, Glen's album feels like a quiet ode to unease—a romantically battered yet spiritually optimistic love letter to the back alley hideaways of the heart. If Once was a magnificent major chord, then Rhythm and Repose is its sustained echo, falling slowly and fading out gracefully.
SumOlogy: A devastatingly gorgeous collection of somber folk songs, morose chamber ballads and even a few stray feel-good acoustic rousers. Fans of Once and The Swell Season will find plenty to swoon about.
Grade: A
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