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Through everything — endless years of being labeled the “next big thing,” tours to all the remotest corners of this country and many others, the disintegration of record deals — frontman Glen Hansard has always kept faith with The Frames. As a result, The Swell Season — a collaborative project with Czech singer/pianist Marketa Irglova — is his first album independent of the band.

There are few frills on The Swell Season. Recorded in Prague over just four days with a simple, stripped-down quartet — Irglova’s piano and Hansard’s guitar, bolstered by Marja Tuhkanen on violin and Bertrand Galen’s cello — the album spans the downward trajectory of a doomed relationship.

There’s painful yearning in the heartbreaking “Falling Slowly” (“Take this sinking boat and point it home/We’ve still got time, raise your hopeful voice”), self-loathing (“Leave”) and despair (“Sleeping” — “And all that you’ve ever owned/Is packed in the hall to go And how am I supposed to live without you?”).

The centerpiece of the album is Irglova’s piano-driven title song, three minutes of perfect melancholy. She has an airy, pure voice which combines beautifully with Hansard’s throughout the album, most memorably on “Lies” and “Drown Out.” But it’s also strong enough to stand alone on (slightly) hopeful closing track “Alone Apart.”

Perfect end-of-the-evening listening, The Swell Season is a beautiful, soul-wrenching album. — RTE

OTHER NEW VINYL RELEASES:

Matt and Kim Sidewalks
Baroness A Horse Called Golgotha
The National Terrible Love
Taylor Swift Speak Now
Tobacco L.A. U.T.I.
The Cult Love
Four Tet Rounds
Four Tet Pause
The Fall This Nation’s Saving Grace
The Fall The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall
Mike Patton Mondo Cane
XTC Skylarking

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BUY THE VINYL HERE

An Introduction To… is Kill Rock Stars’ pitch at a Elliott Smith career primer, and although one could get caught up in questioning the need for any such anthology in the download era, it is pretty fantastically difficult to fault as a collection of songs, and KRS’ intentions and target audience are clear. Ranging from Smith’s relatively spotty 1994 solo debut Roman Candle (from which only one selection appears) through to “Miss Misery,” the pivot point of his career, knowingly offered here in an early, pre-Oscar nominated incarnation, through to a few selections from New Moon, 2007’s posthumous collection of vaulted odds and ends, it’s more a testimony to the ferociously high quality of work that comprised Smith’s catalogue than any triumph of curation.

As the song selection goes, though, An Introduction To… is as tasteful and as thorough as one could reasonably demand. As you might expect, given the title and the label, it is distinctly light on material from Smith’s Dreamworks years, during which he was arguably at the peak of his powers, but it makes up for that thinness by offering up a judicious selection from Smith’s indie breakthrough, 1998’s Either/Or, as well as a few slightly rarer versions of fan favorites, like the single version of “Happiness” and a newly remastered version of 1997’s “Last Call”.

As is the way with these sorts of things, An Introduction To… will also invite the more familiar listener to play a game of soft scrutiny and reflection on what may or may not be a few sins of omission, but of course that’s not really the point. The point is that there are lots of people who haven’t yet had the occasion to discover Elliott Smith, and ultimately this gives them a chance to scratch away at the bittersweet reality of his work, at how conflicted he sounded, at how bitterly unresolved his career remains, and how every single song still somehow feels like both a confection and a dagger. — Pitchfork

OTHER NEW VINYL RELEASES:

My Morning Jacket Tennessee Fire
Brian Eno Small Craft on a Milk Sea
Muddy Waters Hard Again
The Thermals Never Listen to Me
Destroyer Archer on the Beach
Horse Feathers Drain You/Bonnet of Briars

Tags: new releasesvinylwhats playing