M. Ward
Post-War (Merge)
By Annie Anderson
Published: August 22nd, 2006 | 5:12pm
If albums can have the characteristics of a house, then M. Ward’s Post-War is a turn-of-the-century Victorian with a pink velvet couch here, a nail head-trimmed chaise lounge there, and a calico cat peeking from a windowed turret. House dweller Ward stands amidst an overgrown backyard, pant legs rolled up and guitar slung high on his chest, filling the afternoon air with languid, lemonade-filled ditties and partying, spiked-punch tunes.
Ward’s record label, Merge, describes Post-War as an album “filled with enticing nooks and crannies.” Indeed, some turns on the record are so much like the corners of a clapboard mansion they’re easy to miss next to the master suites. Ward’s usual stylings — rockabilly guitar, drum-besting piano, chicory coffee vocals — mesh well to create a beautiful album. But listen closely and you’ll hear an exceptional record. Yep, that’s Billie Holiday providing the faint, winsome dual vocal on the record’s title track. And that effect on the song “Rollercoaster” is a diving board’s snapping twang. And the static that leads from “Post-War” to “Requiem”? That’s the buzzing of insects.
The joyful dizzies and hushed reflections that mark the M. Ward song catalog show up in alternating order on Post-War. The album opens on Ward repeating the word “one” like he’s testing his mic or trying to get our attention. By album’s end, the vocals become sparse and then disappear on the finale, “Afterword/Rag.” Ward’s Post-War takes a cue from his 2005 studio album Transistor Radio by traveling through a tilt-a-whirl of songs to a lulling, instrumental end.
Ward and his cohorts — Neko Case and Jim James on vocals, Mike Mogis on production — craft a tantalizing mix of sounds. The Beach Boys-esque ghost whistle on the surfing “Neptune’s Net” is sandwiched by sideshow sisters “Magic Trick” and “Rollercoaster,” both of which dabble in carnavalian imagery. M. Ward quotes Charles Dickens, croons with Case, and visits a sage under a weeping willow. He sings grateful tunes, wearing the hats of a root-tootin’ tonky, a love-struck boy, and a protective older brother.
Ward’s words are consistently gripping and immediate, but the longing for — and fear of — a far-off landing provide his music’s foundation. “I’ll be true to you forever until I go home,” he sings. Later, he admits “I will live with many ghosts until I go.”
If Transistor Radio paid homage to romantic WWII-era sundry pleasures like turning up the hi-fi, Post-War salutes the idyllic pleasures of the present and future. The album’s title certainly can be no accident, which leads this reviewer to see the record’s 12 songs as a determined affirmation of life in the face of and in spite of war, an album looking to a time that will be adjectived “post-war.” Accordingly, the album is a hopeful and dizzying ride. “God it’s great to be alive / Takes the skin right off my hide / To think I’ll have to give it all up someday,” Ward sings on “To Go Home,” a Daniel Johnston cover. As you progress through Post-War, you start to think along those lines, only on a smaller scale. To think the album will end after only 12 songs, after only an hour of music: wistful indeed.
Issue #27
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