Word: ward
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This, above all, might be what defines Matt (or M.) Ward: his honest demeanor underscores all his words and playing. His heart isn’t quite on his sleeve, but there is a rawness to his soft-voiced lamentations – or celebrations, as “Post-War” is apparently an album written while in the throes of a new relationship...
...will,” he sang in the concert’s opener, a cover of Daniel Johnston’s “To Go Home” that appears on the new album. Johnston, known to be brazenly open about love and loss alike, is channeled by Ward in a way that can only be described as tentative – not reluctant, but perhaps wary...
...Ward structured his set according to the Golden Rock Concert Ratio, playing three quarters of the album he was promoting, parsing in favorites from older albums at just the right moments, and combining invention with devotion in such a way that each familiar song was at once recognizable and intellectually engaging as a new work...
...didn’t unravel the intimacy of his words with overstuffed sound. While the solid backbeat dissolved the illusion that Ward’s songs were quiet confessions (except for the beautiful “I’ll Be Yr Bird,” which Ward performed in the encore before his band joined him), this did less to depersonalize the songs than it did to distance Ward from whisperer-confessors like Sam Beam of Iron & Wine...
Indeed, if Ward proved anything at the Somerville Theatre, it was his versatility. Like the vaudeville-era performers with whom he seems secretly fascinated, he wore many masks and played many roles, going from an impressive acoustic jam (both hands slapping and sliding the entire length of the fretboard), to the Sparklehorse-inspired trembling of “I’ll Be Yr Bird.” Across the entire spectrum, loud or quiet, there is a sense of familiarity with Ward, and it is a comfort that transcends the stories and sounds of his songs. It?...