M Ward first surfaced as a protégé of Howe Gelb, whose Giant Sand seems to be a finishing school for experimentally minded roots-rock types. Ward sings in a growl, enlivened by moments of strained falsetto, over acoustic guitar playing that references both conventional folk and the oblique extrapolations of American primitives such as John Fahey. His fourth album suggests he is still finding his voice, as a comforting, old-timey aura masks occasional forays into stranger territory, such as the surf punk of Regeneration, the low-end drone of I'll Be Your Bird and the translucent arpeggios of Well-Tempered Clavier. Transistor Radio sounds like something you somehow overheard drifting from the back porch of a backwoods shack.
Matador