It's 160 years ago and there's a little covered wagon rolling its rickety way along a dirt trail in the middle of what we now call Wyoming, kicking up a tiny wake of hot dust in the oceanic bigness of the untamed west. You hear it in the quiet, distant, shuffling guitar strums, and lightly galloping snares that fade in at the start of singer-songwriter M. Ward's latest album Hold Time. But when Ward starts singing "For Beginners", this sweet little ode to the "panoramic views" of pioneers, explorers, dreamers, and other "absolute beginners", we feel like we're seeing that little covered wagon from eight miles high; the voice comes across distant and celestial, as if it's being transmitted via satellite from a 23rd Century space probe drifting through the Oort cloud at the outer reaches of the solar system. The song seems to exist at (at least) two entirely different points on the space-time continuum and it's hard to say whether the effect is more nostalgic or more hallucinatory. Either way, it's a lovely start to a lovely record.
M. Ward has been quietly perfecting his peculiar brand of sonic alchemy - an alluring, but at times cloying, amalgam of whispery alt-country, western swing, old time religion, and Elephant 6 - for more than a decade now; but Hold Time may be, if not the most perfect realization of his vision so far (that would probably be his 2006 album Post War), certainly the most immediately accessible and immediately lovable. The songs are mostly short and sketchy, often with simple, Sunday school-ish melodies ("One Hundred Million Years") and lyrics that frequently allude to Bible verses ("Fisher of Men") and the most romantic dreams of Americana (“Jailbird”). These are songs full of wishes and prayers, full of pedal steel, churchy handclaps and spacey electronics.
A cover of the Buddy Holly classic “Rave On” trades the rollicking rockabilly yelps of the original for a lackadaisical cowboy swoon, augmented by mirage-like angel choir harmonies on the latter choruses, while the uptempo “To Save Me” sounds like a picture postcard from Brian Wilson’s post-Pet Sounds doldrums, all pool-hall piano-pounding and doot-doot-doo-ing backup harmonies. “Never Had Nobody Like You” is one of Ward’s most straightforward, unfussy love songs, but it’s set to what sounds like a factory-fabricated reproduction of Gary Glitter’s “Rock N’ Roll” beat, and a chugging, fuzz-damaged, rust-eaten guitar riff. “Stars of Leo” opens with some woozy Santo & Johnny-style steel guitar, suggestive of some tequila-enhanced island paradise, but the second verse approaches with the awesome fury of an Oklahoma twister, brilliantly transforming the song from a tropical daydream into a rocking rave-up. Awesome.
I’m not entirely won over by Ward’s foreverlong (however good on paper) duet with an almost comically raspy Lucinda Williams on Don Gibson’s tear-in-my-beer classic “Oh Lonesome Me” – the song feels both too big and too dismal for its surroundings and effectively stops the otherwise perfectly paced record in its tracks. It may have worked better as a stand-alone single or maybe an album-closer, but then we might have missed the actual album-closer “Outro”, a moodily cinematic instrumental cover of the crooner chestnut “I’m a Fool to Want You” which owes an equal debt to both Duane Eddy and Ennio Morricone. Like a Morricone score, Hold Time has a transformative, transportive power to it. It’s simultaneously earthbound and heavenly, nostalgic and futuristic, both timeless and utterly of its moment.
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BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
“Hold Time” by M. Ward
Merge Records
Released 2/17/2009
Produced by M. Ward
45 min.
SONGS: For Beginners – Never Had Nobody Like You – Jail Bird – Hold Time – Rave On – To Save Me – One Hundred Million Years – Stars of Leo – Fisher of Men – Oh Lonesome Me – Epistemology – Blacke’s View – Shangri-la – Outro (I’m a Fool to Want You)
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