Album: M Ward, ****

The Portland, Oregon, songwriter M Ward operates in the same Americana territory occupied by the likes of Sparklehorse, Grandaddy and Giant Sand, some of whom help out on a few tracks here: Howe Gelb plays piano on "Poor Boy, Minor Key", while Grandaddy's Jason Lytle contribute ambient "field recordings" to an unusually pensive, acoustic version of Bowie's "Let's Dance", which opens the song up to a less aggressive pursuit of escape from the blues. Elsewhere, Ward's own fingerpicking, incorporating elements of rags and blues, owes a huge debt to the late eccentric genius guitarist John Fahey, whose Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death surely inspired this album's title. I have no idea who the eponymous Vincent is, but if he's the "Vincent O'Brien" Ward sings of in the song of that title, he's not a fun person to be around. Sadness courses through the album – as might perhaps be expected of tracks called "Dead Man" "Undertaker", and "Sad, Sad Song" – with Ward clearly drawn to reclusive melancholy. "Involuntary" explains his instinctive retreat from the world when faced with emotional turmoil ("And you're thinking about some place to go/ But your body tells you stay at home/ It's involuntary"), an insularity he regrets in "A Voice at the End of the Line"; but, in a triumph of hope over experience, "Fool Says" finds his romantic dreams persisting. Delivered in Ward's smoky, intimate rasp over sparse, grainy arrangements, these songs have a bleak, haunted quality akin to Tom Waits's more bereft moments, and are recommended.