If it was M. Ward's goal on his second Merge Record album, Transistor Radio, to draw attention to the increasingly homogeneous and trite horizons of commercial radio by crafting a piece of revisionist history harkening back to better times when he was successful. If he aimed to make an album that begins with a cover of the Beach Boys' \You Still Believe in Me"" and ends with J.S. Bach's ""A Well-Tempered Clavier,"" but still retains an organic unity, then he was successful. He transcends these aims though by creating an album of continuously flowing, perfectly executed ideas.
""One Life Away"" encompasses much of what is so great about this record. M. Ward's swooping vocals somehow bend the production into sounding like a song that Harry Smith just could not squeeze on to the Anthology of Folk Music. M. Ward has perfectly captured the idea of ageless folk songs that don't try to be slavishly retro, but like everything on Transistor Radio, sounds completely effortless. The lo-fi production switches to a polished, echoed sound in the aptly titled ""Hi-Fi."" Again, the way he leaps up to hit almost-falsetto notes puts an engaging spin on an otherwise fairly conventional melody. ""Full For Fire"" continues seamlessly from ""Hi-Fi"" with a laidback feel that acts as a nice early album break.
M. Ward then drastically changes the mood on ""Four Hours in Washington"" with a harmonic minor chord change that grows into a increasingly propulsive description of insomnia that becomes even desperate with rolling snare drums and echoed whispers that leads into the chaotic instrumental, ""Regeneration No.1.""
The intensity drops back down for ""Paul's Song,"" which has shuffling drums and a backing steel guitar that steps out in front to play melodic solos, while ""Radio Campaign"" follows with vocal interplay and harmony with flashes of the mood captured in Bob Dylan's ""He Was a Friend of Mine"" from The Bootleg Series Vol.1.
It seems almost impossible that M. Ward is able to capture the exact delivery for each one of these often wide-ranging songs. He goes from '50s rocker on ""Big Boat"" to melancholic assurance on ""Here Comes the Sun Again"" to many points in between without ever seeming out of place. ""Oh Take Me Back"" ups the reverb and throws in a modified version of the talking blues chord changes used in roots music staples such as ""Worried Man Blues.""
Some of the songs may sound familiar, but his voice, guitar playing and the record's production make it seem almost impossible for anyone else to sing these songs without ruining them. M. Ward has created an album that, from beginning to end, successfully draws from much of American music without glossing over a thing.
