★★★★★
Few artists are as comfortingly reliable as M Ward. His careworn and wise voice, a guitar technique as casual and personal as handwriting, the seemingly effortless song craft: they're all present on this, his seventh album proper. While we can take his excellence for granted, there's nothing too predictable about the material itself. A Wasteland Companion manages to cover an awful lot of ground, feeling like a restless exploration of song forms...
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-04-02
★★★★★
Combining sounds of old with new, Portland, OR based M. Ward has released his sixth studio album, A Wasteland Companion. A darker, more mature, and older-sounding M. Ward, perhaps wiser, he has given us the sounds of the future. With mixed genres of Americana country folk, rockabilly blues, and electronic daydream sounds that cast an eerie cloud over the album, the whole project is awesomely hip, and tragically cliché...
- www.ink19.com
2012-06-07
★★★★★
Merge/Bella Union With his gravelly, sweet buzz of a voice blooming over rich, Americana melodies, M. Ward ambles his way through A Wasteland Companion, his seventh solo release and an immediate contender for one of his best. Recorded in eight different studios from Portland Ore., to Bristol, England in nomadic bursts, and with an eclectic range of 18 musicians, this song collection embraces Ward's lush fingerpicked arrangements and adds orchestral strings and plenty of sass...
- www.relix.com
2012-05-31
★★★★★
Although recorded in six cities - including Austin - and at eight studios, with guests from Sonic Youth and Dr. Dog to Bright Eyes, A Wasteland Companion coheres. While not as sunny as 2009's Hold Time, it's confident and multifaceted, the first half hook-filled pop ("Primitive Girl") highlighted by a cover of Daniel Johnston's "Sweetheart," which overflows with hand claps, doo-wop, and Zooey Deschanel. That's when the title track finds him retreating into his roots with understated ambience...
- www.austinchronicle.com
2012-05-14
★★★★★
Goto commentsLeave a commentShare A Folksy Confidante M. Ward's eighth solo studio album A Wasteland Companion shows the singer-songwriter at his finest. After releasing a slew of solo albums, a record with Monsters of Folk, and three albums under the moniker She & Him with Zooey Deschanel, it's a refreshing change to see Ward on his own again. A Wasteland Companion is, as its name suggests, perfect accompaniment for those feeling a little somber or heartbroken...
- www.mxdwn.com
2012-04-26
★★★★★
From the man who's collaborated with everyone from My Morning Jacket to Bright Eyes to actress Zooey Deschanel, it's no surprise that folk luminary M. Ward's latest offering is superb. Wasteland Companion hits all the right notes, whether they are happy and poppy, mellow and evocative or dark and bluesy. Opener Clean Slate is typical M. Ward mellow acoustic strumming, but the following Primitive Girl is brighter and more consequential...
- www.beat.com.au
2012-04-26
★★★★★
She & Him's Him returns to his dark, witty furrow... In conversation, Matt Ward is unfailingly polite, but he gives the strong impression he would rather not talk about himself at all. Even his stage name suggests an underactive ego. Not that Ward is obstructive. He is happy to confirm, for example, that "Clean Slate", the opening track on his seventh solo album, was written for Alex Chilton, after Ward filled in at a Big Star concert soon after the singer's death...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2012-04-23
★★★★★
Matthew Stephen Ward's Cottage Industry of Traveling Song is doing pretty damn brisk business these days. His prolific personal brand, which has averaged an album a year since the mid-2000s, between his M. Ward, She & Him and Monsters of Folk projects, is arguably at its peak right now, if only in terms of public profile and general recognition...
- www.pastemagazine.com
2012-04-19
★★★★★
The timeless quality always inherent in M. Ward's music abounds here on the songwriter's seventh solo album, and rather than a wasteland, this feels more like slices of a dreamscape. Reflective, calculated, and ultimately seductive, A Wasteland Companion drives one's senses through a quiet maelstrom of compressed energy. With sunny songs abutting thoughtful ruminations, it's not a fluid collection...
- www.undertheradarmag.com
2012-04-19
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