M Ward: A Wasteland Companion – review

The riddle asks: if you replace the head of your broom, then replace the handle, have you still got the broom you started with ? So it is with M Ward and his relationship to American music in that period between Elvis leaving the army and the Beatles appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show . Ward's music takes the shape of the declining years of rock'n'roll and of Brill Building pop , then removes its constituent parts and replaces them with newer versions: it's not a retooling, so much as a careful restoration job designed to make it sound like something meant to last for ever. Is it still just early-60s pop, or is it something timeless and new? Ward's seventh album finds him mixing up the country-blues picking of the title track with a rockabilly-noir portrayal of the musician's life on Me and My Shadow. Ward's partner in She & Him , Zooey Deschanel , duets on Sweetheart, but Ward's voice, a little cracked, but also easy and beckoning, is the sweeter.