M Ward - Migration Stories

The Guardian 60

(Anti-)
The vocals are perpetually reverbed and the guitars are always twangy, but on his 10th studio album, the singer-songwriter stretches his legs a little

A quarter of a century ago, on the song Windfall, Son Volt conjured a lyric that pretty much captures the modus operandi of M Ward: “Catching an all-night station somewhere in Louisiana / Sounds like 1963, but for now it sounds like heaven.” Over more than 20 years, Ward has developed and refined a style whose roots are planted somewhere between Elvis leaving the army and the Beatles coming to the fore, but whose branches and blooms are very much part of modern Americana.