Latest releases reviewed.

M WARD
Post-War 4AD
****

M Ward is an American west-coast singer, songwriter and guitarist now settled in Portland, Oregon, where he recorded this, his fifth album, in a friend's attic. Ward's first album cast him as a timeless, reclusive folk-blues miserabilist with a neat touch on the acoustic guitar. Since then he has become a little more colourful, and with Post-war he sounds positively outgoing - at least by his standards. Supported by the likes of singer Neko Case, Ward's songs depict an oscillating world of joy and pain in which the bad invariably follows the good, as on Rollercoaster. The primitive sound, loose studio mood and, mostly, Ward's ever-strange voice, give these songs of obscure reflection a transfixing quality, beguiling and sometimes beautiful, as with the oddly vulnerable Eyes on the Prize. www.mwardmusic.com - Joe Breen

JAWBONE
Hauling Loose
****

I've always thought there was something tragic about one-man bands - as if they couldn't get anyone else to play with them. That was until I heard the rampant ragged glory of Jawbone: Detroit blues enthusiast Bob Zabor and his bass drum, top-hat, harp and guitar. Jawbone's blues are jagged missives from the frontline of his colourful life, powered by stomping rhythms, breathless harp and a cheap and nasty guitar sound. Add to that a voice of warped and fevered intensity and songs with titles such as Dose of Powder, Window Hatchet Blues and Low Dang Discount Jesus Teenage Blues, and you might get the picture. Tragic it ain't. He plays a demon version of Roger Miller's Chug a Lug, but the other 12 tracks are his own, including the excellent Reap What You Sow, Doney Holler and Jump Jump. Timeless but timely, don't expect to hear this on your radio. www.dangblues.com Joe Breen