Newspaper Review

Stephen Nichols, The Harbinger
Shawnee Mission HS (Prairie Village, Kan.)

"Wine" makes a winner

The best way to chart Iron and Wine’s musical progression is their album covers.

“The Creek Drank the Cradle” features a tan background and a plain pink tree that matches the simple acoustic strumming featured on the album.  “Our Endless Numbered Days” has a peaceful looking portrait of lead singer Sam Beam surrounded by green leaves. Once again, the sound is uncomplicated and lush, but a few more instruments join the mix.

And the newly released "The Shepherd’s Dog” cover is filled with rich swabs of color to create a vivid portrait of the aforementioned canine. In step with the bright new cover is Iron and Wine’s bright new sound that incorporates a handful of new instruments and a powerful vocal performance on Beam’s part.

Beam’s career, which started with intimate whispery vocals, an acoustic guitar and a home studio, has shifted into a much more involved new process’ both instrumentally and vocally.

Beam, the man behind the stage name, would likely draw more comparisons to a well-kempt civil war impersonator than an indie-folk star, but don’t let looks deceive.

Beam has already mastered the soft subtle folk genre. The ghost-whispering-in-your-ear lullabies of  “Our Endless Numbered Days” were so peacefully wistful that a “Do Not Operate Heavy Machinery While Listening” sticker would have been a good investment to stick on the cover. “The Shepherd’s Dog” strays away from those tranquil melodies immediately.

Beam begins with “Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car,” a surprisingly upbeat song, layered with swaying strings, bouncing piano and a powerfully simple drum beat that will catch fans of his earlier lo-fi sound off guard.

The sound may have changed, but with lyrics like, “Love was a promise made of smoke in a frozen corpse of trees,” Beam retains the same poetic musing that has earned him the nickname of the “bearded bard.”

The newfound distinction in Beam’s voice steals some of the intimacy of prior albums, but Beam shows that a more powerful voice was needed to sustain the new sound, especially in “Boy with a Coin.” Filled to the brim with hand claps and melodic guitar pickings, “Boy with a Coin” delivers a warm, surprisingly catchy tune and with Beam’s vocals, it becomes the perfect soundtrack for the dwindling warmth of summer and the embrace of fall.

Tracks resembling “Naked as We Came” or his cover of The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” come few and far between in the new album, but this isn’t a shock. Beam has been experimenting with his sound to tether down his floating acoustic melodies.

This evolution can be traced to Iron and Wine’s joint EP, “In the Reins,” with Calexico. Although Beam wrote all the songs for the album, Calexico’s south-of-the-border popped-out sound can be heard quite clearly throughout.

This collaboration has rubbed off on Beam, most notably in “The Devil Never Sleeps,” a quick-tempo, piano-fueled gem that mixes tinges of southern pop with chorus vocals reminiscent of a lost Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young track.

These innovations are a far cry from Beam’s humble acoustic beginnings and the new album leaves the hush ballads of prior releases behind, but overall Iron & Wine has made the right choice in exploring a fuller and more satisfying sound.