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Apr 3, 2012A Wasteland Companion isn't a sonic tidal wave, per se - it's built on some of the folk troubadour's quietest, most intimate tunes in years. But where emotions are concerned, it pummels.
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Apr 10, 2012It's the album's smaller pleasures-like the watercolor blossoms of strings and synths on "Wild Goose"-that define what A Wasteland Companion is.
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Q MagazineApr 25, 2012In upbeat mode, he's made of stirring stuff, but the real wonder here is to be found when he drops a gear into hushed beauty and sun-dappled loveliness. [May 2012, p.101]
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MojoApr 20, 2012A Wasteland Companion revels in the layers of experience overlaid on life, building up texture, building up meaning, building up songs. [May 2012, p.87]
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Apr 12, 2012This new album capitalizes on many of the singer/songwriter's strengths with songs that support his abilities.
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Apr 12, 2012Full of surprises and refreshing detours, this album sometimes feels like M. Ward on steroids.
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Apr 10, 2012A Wasteland Companion belies its foreboding title, largely eschewing the hushed introspection that's cast a pall over previous efforts in favor of, well, a sound that's at least marginally more hopeful.
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Apr 9, 2012A Wasteland Companion finds the melancholic Ward in fine form, and with this effort, he only further establishes his legacy as one of our under-appreciated greats.
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Apr 6, 2012A refreshingly non-dogmatic take on retro musical styles.
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Apr 5, 2012Ward'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.
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UncutApr 4, 2012Go past the tone of his voice, inhale the poetry, and you'll taste a sweeter, less mordant Leonard Cohen. [May 2012, p.68]
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Apr 3, 2012Like all Ward's best records, his eighth solo album plays like an intimate knees up. You'll swoon. You'll smile. You'll spin it over and over again.
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Apr 10, 2012The record feels its finest when the finger-picking guitarist keeps things simple and mellow on the acoustic, filling the remaining space with his warm, husked vocals.
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Apr 16, 2012We come to "A Wasteland Companion" with certain expectations. Happily, Ward meets them.
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Apr 17, 2012This is music that could apply to any age or era, a pure soundtrack for a long road ahead or a journey back in time.
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Apr 16, 2012Ward is one of this genre's best: playful, diverse, and endearing, he has the crucial thing needed to make it work: charm.
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Apr 11, 2012Throughout, Ward's smoky, beguiling voice and ebb-and-flow guitar lines create the sense that every song has a secret to guard, and that it's up to the listener to uncover it.
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Apr 10, 2012In the album's quieter segments he proves that his deft touch remains.
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Apr 10, 2012His seventh is his most vivid and varied yet.
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Apr 10, 2012A Wasteland Companion at first seems unsure of what it wants to be or where it wants to go, vacillating between various genre exercises rooted in a common retro theme, but by the end it reaffirms what those who've loved Ward's old work have always known.
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Apr 9, 2012Fans who were wondering if Ward's mainstream successes would yield a stylistic sea change can rest easy, as his signature, sepia-tone demeanor, for better or for worse, remains steadfast.
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Alternative PressApr 3, 2012It is perhaps three songs too long, but A Wasteland companion is, nonetheless, a welcome return to form. [May 2012, p.85]
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Apr 10, 2012For all its gorgeous expansiveness and new perspectives, it never comes together to be incisive or essential.
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May 10, 2012While not as sunny as 2009's Hold Time, it's confident and multifaceted.
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Apr 10, 2012Listening to M. Ward is nowadays perhaps more deeply pleasurable than it ever has been, with glistening strings and big slabs of piano occupying more and more of the terrain once almost entirely populated by his nimble fingered guitar, trashcan percussion, and creaky room noises.
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Apr 27, 2012As engaging as an album of mood swings can be.
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Apr 13, 2012Just when you're close to giving up [on A Wasteland Companion] we get to 'The First Time I Ran Away' and the album suddenly and brilliantly clicks, starts getting everything right.
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MagnetApr 12, 2012At his best, Ward's always walked a fine line between eloquence and vagueness, hope and disappointment. It's been a great source of tension, and he does that about half the time here. [No.86, p.59]
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Apr 11, 2012The sequencing seems illogical on first listen, but someone as dab-handed as Ward surely intended this, and the rollercoaster becomes easier to digest with each listen.
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Apr 9, 2012Too much filler towards the end of the album detracts slightly, but this is another solid set.
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Apr 9, 2012Ward's at his best when he ditches the troubadour formula, as on the glam-pop romp he takes through Daniel Johnston's "Sweetheart".
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Apr 3, 2012The album as a whole is not perfect; Ward's decision to follow his experimental ear results in a few excusable setbacks. But at its core, A Wasteland Companion shows yet again why Ward can be placed in the higher echelon of contemporary American songwriters.
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Apr 3, 2012What's missing, though, is the familiar sense of deft control over the album's arc, the lyrical intrigues, and the instrumental detail that make his other work so indispensible to the indie folk canon of last decade.
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Apr 17, 2012A Wasteland Companion is Ward's seventh proper solo album, and it certainly has it moments, even if many of them are fairly derivative.
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Apr 18, 2012Much of A Wasteland Companion suffers from the unimaginative fluff that plagued 2009's Hold Time.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 6 out of 11
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Mixed: 4 out of 11
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Negative: 1 out of 11
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May 8, 2012
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Oct 28, 2012
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Apr 12, 2012