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M WARD / Migration Stories (2020.)

His 10th studio album is true to form, often lovely, perhaps too often familiar. There are reference points from across American music: John Fahey (Stevens’ Snow Man), a featherlight cover of the 1940s standard Along the Santa Fe Trail, and the perpetual sound of twangy guitars and reverbed vocals. But Migration Stories is at its most appealing when Ward stretches his legs a little, such as when he tiptoes around the edges of alt-rock and brings in synths on Unreal City, where his facility with melody and arrangement means he doesn’t sound like he’s stepping outside his comfort zone so much as pushing its boundaries outwards; or when he gives the ballad Real Silence a synthetic throb that pushes it gently in the direction of Cigarettes After Sex; or Independent Man, where lambent sax alters the mood.

/Michael Hann, The Guardian/

photo by Christian Corsager – some rights reserved

Migration Of Souls 3:28
Heaven’s Nail And Hammer 4:42
Coyote Mary’s Traveling Show 3:36
Independent Man 4:31
Stevens’ Snow Man 2:01
Unreal City 4:05
Real Silence 2:52
Along The Santa Fe Trail 3:08
Chamber Music 3:13
Torch 3:05
Rio Drone 1:34