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My album of the year - whatever year it is.
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Musically imaginative, robustly performed, and drawn from a golden well of warmth and intelligence.
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There's such a casual, old-timey feel to much of the CD that it's easy to get caught up by the album's charms and forget to focus on Ward's writing, which would be a mistake. [6 Mar 2005]
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It's a deeper, more rewarding listen, rivaling End of Amnesia for Ward's strongest release to date.
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Wistful and bluesy. [11 Mar 2005, p.105]
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Ward's only failure in his bid to create a paean to another era is Transistor Radio's length.
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82This one is just a little tiny bit less perfectly imperfect than [Transfiguration of Vincent], but it's still got all the warmth and gentle disorganization of its predecessor-- with a few more oomphy tracks standing in for Tranfiguration's most introspective meditations.
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No one else sounds like him, and these are the best songs he's ever played. [#9]
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80This is uncluttered, radiant music with the lightest touch and muggiest of voices. [Mar 2005, p.102]
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Ward's voice is a slap-delayed pastiche of Ron Sexsmith's easygoing croon and Andrew Bird's closed-mouth drawl, and like his front-porch fingerpicking, it's as effortless as it is effective.
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80Both melancholic and gleeful, down-home yet artful. [Mar 2005, p.104]
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80He has a childlike wonderment rarely glimpsed among industry-dominated modern music, but he plays this off against a frail world-weariness.
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The hit and miss nature of Transistor Radio makes it seem more like a compilation of songs rather than a cohesive album. But in the end, the album is a winner simply due to Ward's unique voice and talent as a songwriter.
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His lo-fi production values, traditional forms, and writerly sense of detail create songs that seem to recall moments from some collective past life, one that's just barely disappeared from view.
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80Texture and detail separte M. Ward from other solo singer-guitarists, but his general songwriting formula is what gets him to the peak of exceptional list in the first place.
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Another set of unassuming Americana. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]
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70Transistor Radio's songs do lack the shirtfront-clenching grip of Ward's Transfiguration of Vincent set. But shapeless and misty atmospherics have their shadowy power too. [Mar 2005, p.92]
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70At once intimate and far-off... like a beautiful broadcast from a room down the hall. [Apr 2005, p.125]
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Ward has imbibed a sense of remorse and cold-eyed mortality from country blues and Appalachian mountain music, and incorporates them into his own decidedly modern songwriting.
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Ward's lo-fi (and utterly charming) ditties make you long for a past you never lived. [#14, p.123]
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70Even if he isn't entirely breaking new ground, he does put together over 40 straight minutes of eminently listenable music that works as both a reminder of and an accomplishment in its tradition.
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Unfocused, haphazard, and a bit homogenous.
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Most of Ward's quiet, contemporary folk songs are mere sketches, mediocre if not unmemorable. [Apr 2005, p.126]
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 24 out of 24
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Mixed: 0 out of 24
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Negative: 0 out of 24
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jebjebitz9This one is just great. So many subtle moments, it puts you in a great state of mind.
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alecb10
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Spencer10ROCKPALAST! If you're a fan of his newer album, Post-War, you should definitely check out this one!!!