M. Ward - “Migration Stories” (April 3, 2020)

M. Ward takes us on a moonlight stroll with “Migration Stories”

By Steve Forrest

It’s not always necessary to reinvent the wheel with your music and for M Ward, he has proven this to be true time and time again. That’s not to say that his albums aren’t differentiated from one another, nor does it imply that his song writing is primitive; quite the opposite actually.

With any M Ward album you get a catacomb of stories and vibes that stretch far beyond the planes of your wildest imagination yet with such simplicity that you immediately relate to whatever he is delivering to your ears. With his latest release “Migration Stories”, M Ward takes us on a moonlight stroll down to the riverside and serenades us with some of his most intimate tunes to date.

With songs like “Heaven’s Nail and Hammer” you get swept away to a timeless place where you can imagine two young lovers staring at the night sky and dreaming of what is to come, without a care in the world…And yet he’ll have you up and dancing to the effortlessly catchy “Unreal City” which is really the only upbeat tune on this dreamy album.

There really isn’t any criticism I have for “Migration Stories” nor any of his works for that matter. M Ward is one of the great songwriters of our generation and if you don’t know him yet, then I suggest you get to digging because he’s going to continue to give us a break from the mundane and ridiculous for a long time to come.