M Ward released his new album Post-War yesterday, showing no hesitation in following up a masterpiece like 2005’s Transistor Radio. That record was one of my favourites of 2005 so you can be sure I was anxious to hear what he’d do next.

But for some reason, Post-War hasn’t captivated me the way I’d hoped it would. I can’t quantify why, but it definitely hasn’t worked its way into heavy rotation the way its predecessor did. It’s not the fact that Ward has opted to go largely with full band arrangements on the new disc for a more rollicking and uptempo experience. There’s still a goodly number of solo moments that centre around his otherworldly fingerpicking abilities and even when the band is on, it’s all very tastefully arranged and maintains Ward’s signature, timeless atmosphere. I think mainly, I find that it doesn’t flow as seamlessly as Ward’s past works have. Each song stands alone quite nicely on its own but the whole lacks the cohesiveness of Transistor Radio. But not qiote measuring up to an amazing album is hardly anything to be ashamed of and most likely, with time, I’ll be appreciating Post-War on its own merits. Not quite there yet, though.

Ward talks to Harp about the road from learning to play guitar to creating Post-War and the Merge Blog has a video of Ward’s performance on Letterman the other night. And here’s the usual linkage:

MP3: M Ward – “To Go Home”
Video: M Ward – “Chinese Translation” (YouTube)
Stream: M Ward / Post-War
MySpace: M Ward

Norfolk & Western will be part of Ward’s band on his Fall tour, including the September 11 show at the Mod Club. N&W will also be releasing a new album, The Unsung Colony, on October 24. If it’s anywhere near as good as their A Gilded Age EP from earlier this year, it will be excellent.

Harp converses with another musician who exists in his own unique corner of the musical space-time continuum, Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse.

Check out the trailer for the film companion to Okonokos, live double-CD from My Morning Jacket due out on September 26. The film will screen in select US cities before seeing release on DVD October 31.

Australia’s FasterLouder talks to Okkervil River frontman Will Sheff about their upcoming Australian tour, for which they’ve released the down under-only Overboard And Down EP. Their Australian label is streaming one of the new songs from it on their MySpace. Urban Pollution also reports that the band recorded a tiny show in Austin last week for the purpose of releasing a live DVD sometime in the future.

Cat Power talks to The Phoenix and The Straight about her new state of sobriety and why we can (probably/hopefully) look forward to a couple of good performances from her at Lee’s Palace next Monday.

The Independent talks to Calexico.

Rolling Stone has excerpted a portion of their cover story on Bob Dylan, whose universally-praised Modern Times was released yesterday. You can stream the whole thing courtesy of AOL.

Stream: Bob Dylan / Modern Times

+/- are at Sneaky Dee’s on November 29. Been a long time since I’ve seen them, I think I should rectify that. Their new album Let’s Build A Fire is out October 24.

Found this link in my referer log the other day. Noted the disclaimer at the top. Became paranoid.

np – Oakley Hall / Gypsum Strings