M Ward - 'Hold Time' (4AD) Released 16/02/09

With the signature tune to Shane Meadows noirish 'Dead Man' movie and name checked in Hanif Kureishi's latest novel, 'Something To Tell You', M Ward's name crops up in the unlikeliest places. A trailblazer for vintage lo-fi Nashville classicism, M Ward captures a romantic longing in song that has been a continuous thread through his oeuvre and on 'Hold Time' the redeeming qualities of love provide the ballast to the album. Consider M Ward as part of the Portland nu-folk renaissance that has seen him touring with the likes of Conor Oberst and The White Stripes, while 2007's breakthrough album 'Post War' caught the media attention, it's his side projects She & Him alongside Zooey Deschanel that have kept him on the radar. Deschanel appears here on 'Hold Time', and it's some measure of his stature that guests Jason Lytle (Grandaddy), Lucinda Williams and Tom Hagerman (Devotchka) are willing to jump on board for a good old lolly.

A sunny 'For Beginners' opens with a Johnny Cash rumble amidst Old Testament references to Mt. Zion and this and that Kingdom, and there's this biblical counterpoint juxta love to be found on the good Catholic boy of 'Epistemology' and the cotton pickin' 'One Hundred Million Years' - "...this love, this love, between you and I, is older than that burning ball of fire up in the sky...", while the auld sage William Blake proves the inspiration for 'Blake's View' with a grounded mysticism, Ward singing "...death is just a door, you'll be re-united on the other side...". The chugging Cash-like 'Fisher Of Men', meanwhile, pushes the square envelope a tad far into a round hole with its' talk of a fisherman as wise as a prize fighter. Romantic notions, indeed! A melancholic 'Oh Lonesome Me', however, has Ward duet with a husky Lucinda Williams as slide guitar and a rueful low-struck song paint a frosty shade of blue.