By Emily Finkel, News correspondent

Part cover album, part country, part folk, part old and part new, Matt Ward’s latest LP, Hold Time, isn’t entirely what one would expect from the singer-songwriter’s seventh release. Since 2006’s Post-War, Ward, better known by his stage name M. Ward, has broadened his audience and become relatively more famous. Starting a band called She & Him with actress Zooey Deschanel and sharing the stage with Norah Jones will do that for you.
In the past couple of years, Ward’s music has also broadened in scope and sound. The result is a less intimate sonic venture. But Ward’s soothing, low voice and exceptional storytelling skills were the stars of previous albums, and there’s no exception here.
Hold Time, though not explicitly a concept album, expresses an interest in time. Covers of Buddy Holly’s ‘Rave On’ and ‘Oh Lonesome Me,’ originally recorded by Don Gibson and Chet Atkins, allow Ward to travel back in time, but fit into the track list seamlessly. Guest performances from Lucinda Williams, who has been recording music since the 1970s, and Deschanel, whose debut album as one half of She & Him was released in 2008, contribute throughout the album, helping Ward further bridge the gap between old and new.
Opening track ‘For Beginners’ starts, fittingly, at the beginning of time. Ward croons his version of the creation story, singing, ‘They said the original sinners never felt a drop of pain until that second in the garden / Then they felt it each and every day.’ ‘Never Had Nobody Like You,’ with Deschanel, is a simple and poppy ’60s-inspired love song ‘- a track that could have easily appeared on their She & Him full-length, Volume One, though the influence from Ward’s songwriting is clearly stronger than in most of their co-written songs.
Other standout tracks, like ‘Stars of Leo,’ ‘Fisher of Men’ and ‘Epistemology,’ highlight Ward at his best. They also leave listeners wishing there were more songs in the same vein ‘- mid-paced folk rock songs one can’t help but nod along with; songs with building guitars, catchy hooks and a few hand claps for good measure.
Ward offers up a few slower, softer, sadder songs that throwback aesthetically to a grainy era gone by. And tracks like ‘Blake’s View,’ ‘Shangri-La,’ ‘Jailbird’ and the title track are steeped in an Americana sound that gives the album a more timeless, albeit more generic, appeal.
While Hold Time may be an album capable of transporting listeners back in time, they seem to have lost in turn the Ward hybrid of upbeat and lo-fi that has made him so appealing in the past.