I like M. Ward [ tickets ]. What with his old-timey Victrola-crackle vocal stylings and acoustic campfire songwriting style, the guy's a charmer. And since releasing the crown jewel of his canon, 2006's "Post-War," he's been quite the man about town. Teaming up with Zooey Deschanel as She & Him, there was last year's winning "Volume One." There were the collaborations with Jenny Lewis and Bright Eyes. And, oh yeah, the matter of his own solo career--something of an afterthought at this point, maybe?

And thus we have "Hold Time," presumably a catchier distillation of the more apt "Holding Pattern Time." It's not a bad record, but if you're going to wait three years between albums, why in God's name would you include a cover of "Rave On"? That kind of thinking'll get you on the fast track to the cutout bin ... or a landfill. And what's the deal with the title track's easy-listening dry-heave?

There are great songs here ("Jailbird," "Shangri-La," the Zooey-backed slouch-rock of "Never Had Nobody Like You"), and some artful touches that threaten to point toward something conceptually forward-thinking (the subway-aping, galloping drum swell on "Stars Of Leo" is downright exhilarating), but most of M.'s best ideas seem to have been used up on everyone else's records. Most of all, there's simply nothing here that leaps out in full-blown Technicolor like a "Chinese Translation." Just a bunch of fine songs, three long years in the making. Time to get alone and reconfigure, Mr. Indie Go-To Guy.