Album Review: Glen Hansard - Rhythm And Repose

For all the public pronouncements of amicably growing apart and remaining good friends, it's obvious just how emotionally devastating the end of the romantic relationship must have been between Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, who worked together professionally as The Swell Season and on the film Once. It makes the dignity, gentleness and quiet resignation of the songs which make up this first solo album from Hansard – some surely spawned by that breakup – all the more bittersweet and poignant.

Ostensibly based his life in New York City over the past year-and-a-half, not every song is an observation on the change in his relationship with Irglová. Rhythm And Repose is classic Hansard, with all the remarkable grandeur he has always imbued in his work, most obviously with The Frames, all subtle sensitivity one moment, anguished passion the next, delivered through quiet passages that inexorably build to incredibly emotive climaxes. Then there are those simple, almost pastoral songs like Maybe Not Tonight – more George Harrison than Frames – the faintly country in a Teddy Thompson vein Love Don't Keep Me Waiting, or the surprisingly Cat Stevens' High Hope, until that is Hansard opens up in typically plaintive fashion.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking song of all is What Are We Going To Do?, expressing that moment of realisation when lovers still in love realise that they're not meant to be, Irglová adding the distaff reply and harmony. Either way, however, whatever Hansard sings his total commitment to the song is inescapable and thoroughly endearing, deeply human and deeply feeling. Why he isn't a bigger star outside of his native Ireland is quite baffling.