IRON & WINE – KISS EACH OTHER CLEAN
Sam Beam is best described as a musical explorer, and he looks the part of the common bushranger with sage green eyes and a bombastic beard to match. What sets this fourth album aside from his previous and highly varied works is Beam’s willingness to contort his sound palette around the songs. Intact are his junkyard fables and deliciously ambiguous storytelling, as well as his rolling guitars and pitch-perfect harmonies. But, never one to fall comfortably back on a formula, these songs heave with new musical ideas; plonking horns and squelchy synths punctuate Me And Lazarus, 70’s harmonies and shimmering George Harrison guitars decorate the gorgeous Tree By The River, and the piano, a rarely heard instrument in Beam’s music, guides the plaintive Half Moon just shy of the overtly sentimental. Godless Brother In Love is teary, weary Iron & Wine at its best. Beam’s band is a big one – 8-piece in the live context, and here on record he allows them full freedom of expression, at times building to a bewildering and brilliant cacophony. Stickler fans of Iron and Wine’s more lo-fi affairs may recoil at these arrangements at first, but the core songs, and the stride of Beam’s beautiful voice, can never fail to impress.
****1/2
