Glen Hansard figured out a good way not to have to deal with the pressure of following up a hit album that featured an Oscar-winning song. He recorded many of the tracks that wound up on the new Swell Season CD, "Strict Joy," before he realized they would form the basis of the new album.

"It takes the pressure off," Hansard explained in a phone interview. "If I was to sit around and think about it É I probably wouldn't make a second record, because I'd be like 'Gosh, how is this going to be viewed?' É You start thinking about the context in which you're going to be viewed and how are critics going to see it. Then you start getting afraid, and fear is no place to do anything from."

The story of the sudden success of the Swell Season - which performs next week at the Egyptian Theatre - has been well documented. Hansard, long-time songwriter and frontman of the Irish band the Frames, teamed up with classically trained pianist and singer Marketa Irglova on a side project they named the Swell Season.

Shortly after making a self-titled debut CD (which took all of four days to record, at that), Hansard was asked to participate in a low-budget movie called "Once" being made by a friend and former Frames bandmate, John Carney. Hansard and Irglova starred as struggling musicians who fall in love, and some of the songs from the Swell Season's debut CD were used in the movie, including "Falling Slowly." That tune became a left-field winner of the 2008 Academy Award for Best Original Song, and the duo performed the song during the Academy Awards telecast.

Suddenly, the Swell Season became far better known and more popular than the Frames had ever been. "Falling Slowly" became a hit single, and the soundtrack to "Once" went gold, selling more than 500,000 copies.

The group was wrapping up a tour in spring 2008 when it had a free week in its schedule. Hansard contacted producer Peter Katis and set up a recording session at Katis' Bridgeport, Connecticut studio.

"We went down there and we recorded for a week," Hansard said. "We recorded songs we had been playing live, so it was easy. We went in, and we started recording songs, and then we wrote a couple of songs in the moment, in the studio. It just felt so natural. So in a lot of ways it was very similar to the first Swell Season record only so much in that we went in and we just basically started playing. Then we realized at the end of that week that we were in the middle of making a new record."

After two more sessions, enough songs were recorded to complete "Strict Joy," a CD that Hansard said is more melancholy than he'd ideally like, but finds balance in sunnier songs such as "Feeling The Pull" and The Verb."

It's little surprise that "Strict Joy" had its share of downbeat songs. Over the course of making "Once" and starting the Swell Season, life imitated the movie script as the friendship between Hansard, 39, and Irglova, 21, blossomed into love. But before making the new CD, their two-year romance fell apart.

The fact that Hansard and Irglova stayed together to carry the Swell Season forward speaks volumes for how they worked through their breakup.

"Myself and Mar are very close," Hansard said. "Of course, we had our drama. We just didn't have it in public. É I think we both realized that we love doing this and we don't want to stop it, and if there was any way for us both to continue doing it without it being weird, we both decided let's do it."

The CD the Swell Season made is likely to please fans who discovered the group through the "Once" soundtrack. Like the earlier material, "Strict Joy" retains the group's melodic folk-centric sound. But the songs on the new CD are fuller and fleshed out instrumentally. More importantly, songs such as "Low Rising," "High Horses" and "The Verb" offer striking melodies, and the additional instrumentation gives the songs more color and melodic interest.

On tour, some of the new songs may take on a different character. Along with Hansard and Irglova, the Swell Season now essentially includes the three other members of the Frames (violinist Colm Mac Iomaire, bassist Joe Doyle and guitarist Rob Bocknik) - a move that resolved potential problems that could have occurred if Hansard had needed to divide time between the two groups.

"We'll present the songs slightly different from night to night," Hansard said. "Because the good thing about being a band is we can sort of switch out arrangements by the day. 'Look, I'm going to do this song acoustically tonight.' Or, 'Let's do this acoustic song with a full band and see how that feels.' What's good about working with a band you know is you get to shake it up and they all sort of get it."