M Ward 'Hold Time'

What do we want from our favourite artists?

I've been wondering this quite a bit lately. Once we've discovered an artist, do we want them to keep on making the same record over and over again to remind us why we liked them in the first place, or do we want them to challenge us and make us fall in love with their music all over again?

One of my favourite records of all time is M Ward's 2003 album 'Transistor Radio'. From the first moment I heard it, I just loved the sound of it. Recorded in analogue and sounding like a record from the 50s or the 40s it was a collection of torch songs and feelgood stompers that made you smile and swoon. the music was so rich and varied that it did feel like turning the dial on an old radio (like the one my Grandparents had that always seemed to find Radio Luxembourg) and hearing different sounds drift in and out. The real clicher was 'Fuel For Fire', as sweet a song as has ever been written about the joys of late nights alone with old books and scratchy records.

When Ward followed this up in 2006 with 'Post-War', I was ever so slightly disappointed. It was a really good album but didn't have the same feel and I didn't love it as much, although it did well for him and I told myself that it would be rude to expect another 'Transistor Radio'.

Well, I've been listening to M Ward's new album 'Hold Time' over and over and somehow he has managed to make a record as rich, as evocative and as utterly gorgeous as that album that made me love his music to start with. The record is luxurious, the soul in Ward's croon mixing with the folk, americana and blues of the arrangements but the added piano, strings and synth make this sound far richer than most records of the same genre.

Highlights? That would be most of it. 'Stars of Leo' builds from an acoustic strum to a fuzzy, anthemic pop songs with a lyric about mortality. 'One Hundred Million Years' is a traditional Ward ballad returning to the same subject ('the lights that shine tonight/ will burn on when we die'). He has some fun on 'Never Had Nobody Like You' which sounds like a Roy Orbison song with some great electric guitar to liven it up and 'Rave On', a fun arrangement of a Buddy Holly song with Zooey Deschanel sharing the vocals.

Before I run the risk of mentioning each and every song (and I should not have got this far without mentioning the great pure pop of 'Epistemology') I should talk about the two stand-outs. 'Oh Lonesome Me' a cover of a Neil Young song, sung here as a duet with Lucinda Williams is as dusty and heartfelt as any Americana you will hear this year, whilst the title track is almost unbelievably beautiful. Over layer upon layer of richly arranged strings, Ward sings his most beautiful love song building to the last line of "I wrote this song just to remember/ the endless endless Summer in your laugh".

This is a marvellous album and it plays just as an album should, to be listened to as one piece of music. Songs drift in and out like a series of dreams, taking in a dazzling array of styles. There is so much to be enjoyed and loved here. This will take some beating for record of the year.

9.2

['Hold Time' is out now on cd and LP with download code on Merge/4AD]