Sleepercar is another one of Jim Ward’s side-projects. We all know the good man from At The Drive-In and more recently, Sparta but apparently he has been working on some other songs for several years already. And I have to say I was pleasantly surprised after listening to “West Texas”. At the very least it’s a hell of a lot better than say, his collaboration with Bobby Byrd.

Now, it’s not exactly a novelty anymore when a punkrocker starts an acoustic side-project. Many have already attempted it in the past and ended up with a collection of bland and slow songs that seemed to be written that way because of the misconception that that’s what a serious singer/songwriter is supposed to sound like. But the strength of Sleepercar is that Ward maintains the energy from his At The Drive-In days. Even the slowest songs on the album like “Wednesday Nights” seemingly feed off an undercurrent of pure energy.

It’s hard to pin this one down because it has a lot of Americana and country influences but some of the songs are pure rawk while a duet with Denali’s Maura Davis (“You Should Run”) has something of a Cardigans-vibe. All of the songs have in common though that they sound amazing, proving yet again that Ward is indeed a damn fine songwriter.