On Hold Time, his sixth studio album, Portland, Oregon Indie-rocker M. Ward sounds like a man who is thinking things through, trying to make sense of the proverbial “I’ve been a few places.” On the opener, “For Beginnings, he sings, “When you’re absolute beginners/ It’s a panoramic view,” and from there he’s off to get a closer look at things, from the underground of New York City, to next stop Shangri-La. Faith is on his mind; in “Epistemology” he reveals, “I learned how to hold on from a book of old Psalms”, as is confinement (“Jailbird”), and love (“One Hundred Million Years”, “Hold Time”). He pairs with She & Him co-contributor, Zooey Deschanel on the album’s first single, the toe-tapper “Never Had Nobody Like You” and when he sings, “I trusted liars and thieves in my madness/Honey, I was wasting away in the room/But now that I been through that hell I got a story to tell,” you’ve invested yourself in whatever he’s got to say. Ward’s trademark is that his voice hovers somewhere between a dusty country road and an easy-to-be-a-dreamer star-filled sky summer night, and it’s the perfect compliment to his guitar, which he wields like someone who grew up idolizing George Harrison. The true beauty of both, his voice and his guitar, is the restraint; less sounds just about right pretty much all the time. Hold Time is a fitting title; it’s an homage, or a time capsule of sorts—beyond the obvious parallels of Ward’s breath-of-fresh-air revival of Buddy Holly’s “Rave On”, he and Lucinda Williams beautiful take on the country standard, “Oh Lonesome Blues”, or the Johnny Cash train track chug of “Fisher of Men”—open it and you hear the dusty reminders of Phil Spector and Brian Wilson-like production from time forgotten, when songs could be both worldly colossal and at the same time your closet chum; someone whose hand you just don’t want to let go of because if you do you risk never getting that moment back. Hold Time perhaps isn’t as good as its predecessor, the stalwart 2006 release Post War, but it further solidifies him as the M. Ward of his generation, the same way Neil Young and Joni Mitchell were the Neil Young and Joni Mitchell of theirs; voices worth listening to because hearing them felt so good.

After nearly twenty years and five albums as the front man for The Wallflowers, Jakob Dylan has gone solo. At first glance the album’s title, Seeing Things, could look sort of ominous with song titles such as, “Evil Is Alive And Well”, “Everybody Pays As They Go”, and “War Is Kind,” considering who his old man is. But listen to the album and you’ll quickly realize the second coming of The Times They Are A-Changin’ this is not. Jakob Dylan paints his canvas with concise, impressionist brushstrokes. Dylan isn’t a man trying to make a statement; there is no ethos, no concrete message. Seeing Things doesn’t try to be more than what it is; a collection of ten songs lasting just under forty minutes sung by a man who’s got a penchant—and talent—for writing deeply personal songs. The Wallflowers, though fun, always seemed like they should have been a vehicle for what has now become a reality, Dylan’s solo career. And he seems at ease with that as he sings, “My line of work suits me fine,” in the song, “All Day And All Night.”

Seldom is gravel a synonym for smooth but Dylan’s voice is as soothing as a ride in the back of a pickup truck on a backcountry road in the middle of a cool summer night. And his voice has never sounded better; a perfect compliment to his acoustic guitar on this acoustic driven record. Seeing Things at times sounds like a not so distant relative of a softer Neil Young (think Silver & Gold) or Tom Petty (think Wildflowers) offering, or an E-Street Band-less Springsteen album. The songs weave comfortably in between blues, folk, and country influences and come out as a reflection of a man who has come to terms with his surroundings just fine, and as he’s looking out on the world through his sunglass covered eyes, he’s doing so with admiration. The album’s production is vintage Rick Rubin: sparse, intimate, and alive; you can hear the creaks of the studio. It’s not as stripped down as some of Rubin’s work with Johnny Cash, but it’s just as personal, and it sounds precisely like these were the types of songs Dylan was born to sing.