I wasn’t sure how much I’d like Beast Epic, the new album by Iron & Wine, aka Sam Beam. I knew he’d softened a bit since the early days, gotten less gritty, less dark in general — and hey, I can’t fault him for that. You can only be dark and moody for so long…
As it does every year I’ve gone (six times since 2004), SXSW overwhelms me, exhausts me, and most of all makes me glad to be a musician and music fanatic. Anyone who throws the one-liner out there, “there’s no good music anymore!” is just…
Wait, wait…who am I listening to, again? I’d heard rumors of a stylistic shift happening in the Iron & Wine camp, with frontman/songwriter Sam Beam moving away from his trademark downhome, low-key folk, but looking back, I honestly had no idea…
With most artists, as they develop, their subject matter and the tone of their songs usually becomes more serious. Sam Beam, on the other hand, has taken the opposite path. The new Iron and Wine album, The Shepherd’s Dog, is actually less serious in tone than previous albums…
Update time, update time… This time out, we’ve got 2 things in particular that I’m very excited about. The first is a review (by yours truly) of the brand-new Linus Pauling Quartet CD, All Things Are Light. And while you should really go read the review for yourself, I can give you the upshot here: […]
One of Iron and Wine’s strengths is the band’s ability to grab hold of a humble, deceptively simple motif, idea, or sound and just repeat it ’til it’s driven like a railroad spike through your skull. That’s not as bad as it sounds, honest…
