The Swell Season Forward
Released Jul 11, 2025 Masterkey Sounds & Plateau Records
Established consensus 5 professional reviews Updated Aug 27, 2026
Mostly positive consensus
The Swell Season's Forward announces a heartfelt reunion that leans into lush arrangements, intimacy and parental reflection while trading on the duo's familiar chemistry.
How ChoruScore worksCritics' Top Tracks
The songs critics returned to most
I Leave Everything To You
2 critic mentions
“The stunning ‘I Leave Everything To You’ is built on tender and fragile piano” — Hot Press
Great Weight
2 critic mentions
“The orchestration also immediately stands out with "Great Weight", the penultimate track, and it is a genuine surprise.” — PopMatters
Factory Street Bells
2 critic mentions
“The melodies, the vocal harmonies, and the strings are all precisely the kind of thing listeners come to the Swell Season to hear.” — PopMatters
Full critic consensus
The Swell Season's Forward announces a heartfelt reunion that leans into lush arrangements, intimacy and parental reflection while trading on the duo's familiar chemistry. Across professional reviews the record earned a 72/100 consensus score from five reviews, a reception that frames Forward as a warmly received, if occasionally uneven, return. Critics consistently single out “I Leave Everything To You”, “Great Weight” and “Factory Street Bells” as the collection's most affecting moments—the piano-and-voice simplicity of “I Leave Everything To You” and the sax-tinged jolt of “Great Weight” bookend the string-laced charm of “Factory Street Bells”.
Reviewers agree that orchestration and stylistic variety propel the album: restrained folk intimacy sits beside richer, occasionally funky touches, with themes of parenthood, regret and reconnection threaded throughout. Some critics praised the album's brevity and focused arrangements as virtues that heighten lyricism and emotional clarity, while others noted moments where the production's polish softens the rawness that defined the duo's earlier work. The critical consensus suggests Forward rewards repeated listens for its standout tracks and lyrical warmth, even if a handful of songs feel tentative compared with the best moments.
Taken together, the professional reviews position Forward as a meaningful chapter in The Swell Season's catalog: not simply a nostalgia piece, but a record that balances reminiscence and moving on, with clear standout songs that make a persuasive case for why critics believe the reunion matters. Read on for detailed reviews and track-by-track impressions.
Track Ratings
How critics rated each track, relative to this album (0-100). Only tracks that made critics feel something are rated.
Factory Street Bells
People We Used To Be
Stuck In Reverse
I Leave Everything To You
A Little Sugar
Pretty Stories
Great Weight
Hundred Words
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What Critics Are Saying
Deep insights from 5 critics who reviewed this album
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Critic's Take
The Swell Season's Forward feels like a quiet reclamation, its best songs - “Factory Street Bells”, “I Leave Everything To You” and “Great Weight” - staking emotional claims early. There is praise for the album's brevity being a virtue, each track distilled into a surfeit of beauty. Ultimately the record is celebrated as a more-than-welcome return, songs that pair humble arrangements with memorable choruses.
Key Points
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The best song is driven by intimate performance and striking melody, exemplified by Markéta's fragility on "I Leave Everything To You".
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The album's core strengths are the rekindled vocal chemistry and concise, beautifully arranged songs that make brevity a virtue.
Themes
Critic's Take
The Swell Season return on Forward feels like a joyful reunion, and the best songs on Forward are plainly the intimate “I Leave Everything To You” and the surprising “Great Weight”. Chris Conaton writes with warm, observant detail about how “I Leave Everything To You” strips back to piano and voice, making it one of the best tracks on Forward, while “Great Weight” provides a late-album jolt with its funky sax and sultry backing vocals. The opener “Factory Street Bells” is singled out as lovely for its melodies and strings, confirming these as the album's standout moments.
Key Points
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“I Leave Everything To You” is the best song due to its intimate, superb melody and emotionally charged vocal performance.
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The album’s core strengths are the duo’s harmonies, lush arrangements, and a surprising stylistic shift on "Great Weight".
Themes
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