“Innocent Bones“
from the album The Shepherd’s Dog
2007
iTunes
Sam Beam, the founder of Iron & Wine, has an enormous beard. But it’s not a standard set of whiskers like you or I might grow. No — this is an unruly mound of flaming red hair. It’s the kind of beard grown by a man deliberately flouting the conventions of polite society. The sort of beard that says, “I live all alone in a swamp, without a single friend or mirror.” A breed of beard that silently, but firmly, rejects the prospect of superficial pop success.
And, until now, Sam Beam has approached Iron & Wine much like he has approached his beard: as an uncompromising individual. His first two albums were fiercely creative, personal and low-tech affairs. Shunning any sort of studio polish, Iron & Wine’s indie folk was based solely on Beam’s talents as a composer and lyricist. Fortunately, Beam’s talents elevated Iron & Wine’s works above most conventional indie ballads. His sound was more like fragile, melodic poetry: landscapes of Southern Gothic imagery, lovesick nostalgia and tender childhood memories. And he communicated this all through a hushed whisper and the spare strumming of his guitar and banjo. Over the course of his first two albums, Beam crafted a style that exuded sincerity and originality but rarely strayed from the core ideas of his project.
But with its third full album, Iron & Wine have expanded their sound dramatically. The Shepherd’s Dog takes the signature Iron & Wine sound to its most lush and polished incarnation yet. The project, once the lone work of Beam in his Florida home, now features a full-time back-up band and full recording studio. As originally hinted at in their last EP, Iron & Wine have incorporated frantic paces, organ, xylophone, funky percussion and other exotic instruments into the mix. Put together, these new instruments add calypso, saloon-style piano and even twitch funk to the band’s standard palette of folk, country and Southern rock.
The album’s first track, “Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car” demonstrates this new approach well. The track starts with the distant click of drums and slide guitar in a gauzy and metallic sheen, much like Iron & Wine’s early recordings. But with the swift crack of a snare drum, the song begins to reveal itself as a rich layering of guitars, vocal harmonies, drums and flourishes of piano. Meanwhile, Beam sings in his usual beautiful but cryptic style, “While with his gun the pagan angel rose to say, ‘My love is one made to break every bended knee.'”
The band continues to experiment, throwing in a Caribbean, dub-like sound to the song “Innocent Bones,“ which is the band’s most adventurous turn yet. “Boy With a Coin” features a catchy, circular acoustic riff and memorable melody. In this song, Beam weaves several tales reminiscent of Boo Radley’s gifts to Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, a Southern Gothic classic that Sam Beam has no doubt read many a time. Then comes “The Devil Never Sleeps.” The band creates an almost Motown-sounding rocker, complete with funky piano and bongo drums. It’s a far cry from the plaintive ballads of previous albums.
Stylistically, The Shepherd’s Dog is a whole new era for Iron & Wine. The band, previously a prisoner to its own formula, has set itself free to explore different styles. But, thankfully for the listener, Beam and company retain the core spirit of the band. Beam’s ideas and emotions and persona are still the focus of the project. And, thankfully, Beam’s beard remains untrimmed.