25. M. Ward
Post-War [Merge, 2006]
I think it was Bob Dylan who once said something to the effect that songs should be heroic enough to give the illusion of being able to stop time. The sort of magical transcendence described by Dylan may well apply here as Matt Ward’s operative mode on his fifth album Post-War, as he gracefully stitches together micro narratives of nostalgia that bear the indelible mark of his smoked-tinged croon: songs about time lost and time regained, songs about love in the time of unspecified wars. Ward has always sang like a man of constant sorrow and he put that moody tenor to good use on the opening “Poison Cup” and especially on the title cut – the introspective pull of “Post-War”, its lyrics curdled in a familiar warmth (“Don’t they love you in mysterious ways/ You say yeah but this is now and that was then/ Put a dollar into the machine and you’ll remember when”) as Ward pines for the better times of old over a fog of vintage keyboard notes, is quite remarkable. Aside from sad songs, he also tempers the blues-drenched melancholia with vivid joy in a few of the album’s up-tempo, rockier numbers; to have such accomplished musicians as Mike Mogis, Jim James and Neko Case backing him isn’t too bad a deal, of course, as the contemplative “Chinese Translation” and a raucous cover of Daniel Johnston’s “To Go Home” work especially well in this full-band setting. And yet, it is his haunted voice that you can’t quite shake off, as the curative comforts of Post-War transport you into a state of antiquarian bliss, unsure as to how it is that you got to feel this way in the first place.
Post-War [Merge, 2006]
I think it was Bob Dylan who once said something to the effect that songs should be heroic enough to give the illusion of being able to stop time. The sort of magical transcendence described by Dylan may well apply here as Matt Ward’s operative mode on his fifth album Post-War, as he gracefully stitches together micro narratives of nostalgia that bear the indelible mark of his smoked-tinged croon: songs about time lost and time regained, songs about love in the time of unspecified wars. Ward has always sang like a man of constant sorrow and he put that moody tenor to good use on the opening “Poison Cup” and especially on the title cut – the introspective pull of “Post-War”, its lyrics curdled in a familiar warmth (“Don’t they love you in mysterious ways/ You say yeah but this is now and that was then/ Put a dollar into the machine and you’ll remember when”) as Ward pines for the better times of old over a fog of vintage keyboard notes, is quite remarkable. Aside from sad songs, he also tempers the blues-drenched melancholia with vivid joy in a few of the album’s up-tempo, rockier numbers; to have such accomplished musicians as Mike Mogis, Jim James and Neko Case backing him isn’t too bad a deal, of course, as the contemplative “Chinese Translation” and a raucous cover of Daniel Johnston’s “To Go Home” work especially well in this full-band setting. And yet, it is his haunted voice that you can’t quite shake off, as the curative comforts of Post-War transport you into a state of antiquarian bliss, unsure as to how it is that you got to feel this way in the first place.
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