Sometimes a record grabs you by the back of the brain and twists your head around so hard you hardly know what you're up against.
'The Creek Drank the Cradle' doesn't do that. Iron and Wine, the nom de guerre of Floridian Sam Beam, takes a different tack altogether on his debut effort for Subpop.
Pleasantly fuzzed multi-tracked vocals, backed by
rhythmic acoustic guitar, the woozy zip of slide guitar, and the heartstring pluck of the banjo, whisper sounds so familiar and so primal, they seem merely pleasant at first listen. One more time around and you begin to
sense the presence of the kind of tender mountain love whose ultimate consummation seems to be murdering your sweetheart and moaning your remorse from the gallows.
The secret here, the buried treasure, and the forgotten art, is the lyrical hook. The music lulls, while the words worm their way into consciousness.
Standout track 'The Rooster Moans' is a keening mountain ballad worthy of BF Shelton. Wrapped around a tight banjo is an abstract story of a boy led
astray: 'longest path the devil laid/led you straight aboard this rusty train.' The next lazy gem, 'Upward Over the Mountain' is an appeal to mama
in good ol‚ countrified tradition. 'Mother down worry,' he whispers, 'I killed the last snake that lived in the creek bed.'
The boys, it seems, are going blue. Die hard indie-rocker representatives from Built to Spill and Modest Mouse have kicked aside the macho electric ax for the slide and banjo. They could learn a thing or two from Sam Beam‚s true heart.
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