M. Ward’s latest release Hold Time is as much an album about loneliness and tragedy as one about religious hope and love. Throughout the album, the crooner’s tender, country voice serenades the listener with pastoral images as he mournfully strums away at his guitar. On one song Ward sings the blues of a man in jail; on another he tells of a man who imprisons himself at home.
The titles of many songs, like “Fisher of Men” and “For Beginners (a.k.a. Mt. Zion),” overtly suggest the religious undertones that permeate the album. One track even describes the mythical Shangri-La, which sprang from a Tibetan Buddhist tradition, with unmistakably Christian terminology: M. Ward sings that, when he gets there, he “cannot wait to see the expression on the face of my sweet Lord.”
Ward will be touring throughout the Eastern seaboard in support of his new album, stopping by the District on Feb. 21 at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.
Voice’s Choices: “One Hundred Million Years,” “Rave On (ft. Zooey Deschanel),” “Blake’s View”
