Jul 20 2006
New M. Ward: ‘To Go Home’
There is something about M. Ward’s music that tends to make me like and dislike it at the same time. Through most of his albums, I find his songs pleasant enough, and while his vocals and guitar work are also top notch, the songs always seem a little too archaic sounding for their own good. Now this isn’t always the case, and there’s always a few songs on each album that manage to shine through. That’s usually the upbeat, jaunty songs from each release in my case, so it’s lucky that the first song I got to hear from his upcoming album, ‘Post-War’, falls into that category.
‘To Go Home’ isn’t particularly groundbreaking if you’re already familiar with previous album ‘Transistor Radio’. Seeing as that was the strongest Ward album though, that isn’t a bad thing. Bringing in the same kind of extra sounds that made that album enjoyable (yay for tinkling pianos) and adding a backing vocal, something that adds to the texture of the song no end. It’s not just any backing vocal either, it’s Neko Case in the background here, whose voice plays off perfectly against Ward’s gruff sound. I’m still not hugely excited by this album, but if I hear a few more songs of this kind of quality, I can myself growing to like it.
‘To Go Home’ is taken from M. Ward’s upcoming album ‘Post-War’, which will be released on August 22 on Merge Records.
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