When we last heard new music from the Swell Season, their 2009 album Strict Joy was a victory-lap of sorts. Ireland’s Glen Hansard and the Czech Republic’s Marketa Irglova had ridden their little-engine-that-could, the indie movie Once, all the way to the 2008 Academy Awards ceremony, where they won the Oscar for Best Song. In the midst of it all, a romance bloomed, then faded.
Their musical partnership went on hold after Strict Joy, even as Once found its way to Broadway in the 2010s. Irglova ended up in Iceland, married music producer Sturla Mio Thorisson and started a family. Hansard married Finnish poet Maire Saaritsa, with whom he has a young son. It’s a lot of water under the bridge, and that’s largely what Forward is about.
