Richard Swift Hex CD

The Hex, the final album Swift completed before he passed.

What makes The Hex Richard Swift’s strangest—and, ultimately, strongest—record is its intensity. There’s a cumulative feeling as he collects his various modes, from warped girl-group nightmares (“Wendy”) to sprawling psych-pop (“Broken Finger Blues”) and pensive ballads (“Sept20”). Suddenly, everything is more urgent, less tentative. Take “Dirty Jim,” the most upbeat song here. Its arrangement shares a thread with the 2007 rallying cry “The Songs of National Freedom.” But where that song’s darkness was cut with messages of hope, “Dirty Jim” sees no way out. The bouncing ragtime melody conveys the weight of inevitability; life goes on, but our troubles don’t budge.