Customer Reviews

West Texas

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What an extraordinary exhibition of influence these songs offer: the echo of a latter day Lloyd Cole album drives a spike through the broken heart of "Heavy Weights," the vaguely new wave "Sound the Alarm"--perhaps the album's finest track--almost prepares you for Hall & Oates to take the mike and belt one out about a woman who only comes out at night as Mark Knopfler straps on a guitar and awaits his part.

If none of the material here really approximates Ward's vision of a rootsy American rock album as closely as he may have desired--Jim Ward still sounds very much like the lead vocalist of Sparta throughout West Texas--it's in his aspiration for a sound so alien to the music he's known for that brings him--and his listeners--to some unexpected creative landscape where willows drip with a melting and late-season snow as an iron and sweeping sky rushes the day to dusk. You lift the collar of your coat to combat a dank chill in the air--one of the last of the season--and you grin and walk right through it as the year closes in on so many warmer days.

Only "Wednesday Nights" and "Fences Down" really hit the alt-country mark Ward seems to set his sights on here, songs that could quite easily pass themselves off as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot outtakes. But, again, it's in the album's misfires that something genuinely fascinating occurs, and it's for that reason that we expect West Texas to feature prominently in many end-of-the-year "best of" lists. Don't miss this record; it's as close to a guaranteed pleasure as we may hear all year.

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I am not knowledgable about this genre. I've heard of but never listened to Jim Ward's 'Sparta' or 'At the Drive In' days. I stumbled across this album a month after its release, and something about this album felt like home; I live in Washington (and sometimes Iraq), but I was born and raised in Texas, and when I'm listeninging to to this album I feel like I'm being transported home. I couldn't explain to you how it sounds like Texas--except maybe the guitar twangs in 'Fences Down'.

Regardless of your hometown, it's a very comforting album, one with a lot of soul. Ward worked hard on an album that he knew would never gather as much attention after his previous works, but he was compelled to follow his heart, and that led him to record one of the most soothing albums I own.

Manzione is right; you've found a hidden gem.