It’s easy for hipper-than-thou elitists as well as standard music forum aficionados to criticize bands for getting worse with each coming album, that the original sound or idea behind the band has become crushed by mainstream desires and general blandness. However, Sam Beam, under his moniker Iron & Wine, a title which evokes soft lo-fi beauty, memorable lullabies, and Zach Braff, has proven those hipsters wrong, and seems to expand and perfect his sound with each coming album.
Out of the bedroom and into the bayou comes his latest endeavor, The Shepherd’s Dog. One could see the subtle bluegrass influences on his Woman King EP, and now he is able to fully relish in this new direction with a backing band who all seem to know where Beam is coming from. Songs like opener “Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car” showcase Beam’s light vocals in a whole new setting, and it doesn’t sound one bit out of place. The slide guitar reappears from his lo-fi days, but now alongside a crew of strings which alternate between a group of convincing fiddles and a passionate string quartet. A piano appears at various parts throughout tracks as well, sometimes as a simple blues background, other times with a minimalist style, choosing to come and go as it pleases.
It would also hardly do the album justice to call it a bluegrass album. “Carousel” finds Beam’s distinct fingerpicking, now on an electric guitar, and his voice with an effect on it to give him almost an underwater feel. “Innocent Bones” takes the listener on a pleasant walk on one of the last nice days of fall, through a forest with the leaves at their most brilliant of colors. “Boy With A Coin,” one of the album’s highlights as well as the single that was released well before the album, brings Beam back to the acoustic guitar but with a new style that will not certainly not turn old fans away.
The album finishes with “Flightless Bird, American Mouth,” possibly the most beautiful song on the album. Beam finds himself conducting a waltz, retelling memories of old in dense, but meaningful lyrics. The harmonies in the chorus are what stand out the most (not that they’re not great throughout the whole album), and remind us why we all got hooked to his voice from the start. It is a fantastic closer that doesn’t try to end with an epic, over-the-top, slap in your face, but still leaves you with a sense of closure (unless of course you decide just to put that song on repeat for awhile).
I hope that this is only the beginning to what could be a wonderful turn for Iron & Wine. So rarely does one see a band improve with every album, but I certainly will not take Sam Beam’s plight for granted, and instead encourage him to continue. We’ll always love stealing his bedroom lullabies to croon to our girlfriends, but I wouldn’t mind getting a band together to hit up these songs either. |