M. Ward - "To Go Home EP" (Merge Records)

The new Matt Ward takes a little getting used to. That’s not to say the hustle and bustle of “Post-War,” his most recent full-length, was unwelcome or obtrusive.

No, that album manages to sound fresh while staying faithful to its predecessors, as the addition of a full-time backing band has put some meat on the bones of Ward’s previously wispy arrangements.

“To Go Home,” the album’s first single and the eponymous highlight of M. Ward’s newest EP, is a case in point. Pitching up and down like a creaky fin de siècle roller coaster, the rollicking Daniel Johnston cover exemplifies Ward’s newfound balancing act.

Offsetting the pounding drums, which swell repeatedly to (almost) fist-pump-inducing crescendos, Ward’s throwback vocal style, with support from singer Neko Case, reminds listeners of older, gentler, “pre-war” tunes.

The three songs that follow the title track on this single release are good, too—but not great. Apparently, on a tiny release like this, listeners miss out on features that have defined Ward’s LPs since 1999’s “Duet for Guitars #2.”

Here, there are no whimsical instrumentals, no surf-tinged laments, and a lot less of M. Ward’s signature old-timey feel.

It doesn’t take a Luddite to lament this transition—at least at first. “Post-War” is a beautiful album, but on “To Go Home” the sacrifices made in favor of a new, bigger sound are abundantly clear. Sandwiched between covers that, appropriately, book-end the album, the two Ward originals sound like compulsory nods towards a dead era.

The bewilderingly-titled “Cosmopolitan Pap” is quaintly anachronistic enough, and Howe Gelb’s dexterous piano work gives it a foot-tapping honky-tonk vibe.

Still, the antebellum imagery and feel of past albums like “End of Amnesia” and “Transfiguration of Vincent” were lost in the LP’s titular war. As a result, the album’s third song, “Human Punching Bag,” sounds vacuous, like a half-hearted attempt to recall the quiet beauty of “I’ll Be Yr Bird” on 2005’s “Transistor Radio.”

Another boisterous cover, this time of country crooner Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s “Headed for a Fall,” closes the album. While it’s fun to hear Ward belt it out with a host of guest musicians, again including Case, the song sounds just enough like the Traveling Wilburys covering a TV theme song to make loyal Ward listeners uncomfortable.

The bottom line is that, while there’s nothing wrong with this single’s constituent parts, it lacks the breadth and coherence that longer works allow. It’s fun to listen to, but one can’t help casting a longing glance back to a time before (or even during) the war.

Still, memory and nostalgia are two of Ward’s signature tropes, and, if the longer “Post-War” is any proof, he has no intention of forgetting the sepia-tinged daguerreotypes he now stashes somewhere deep in his closet.

Beneath the drums and the yelps, Ward is still a campfire storyteller of sorts. Let’s just hope he doesn’t forget it.

—Reviewer Henry M. Cowles can be reached at hmcowles@fas.harvard.edu.