After many months of eager anticipation, Iron & Wine (aka. Sam Beam) is finally back with his latest offering, The Shepherds Dog. Looking at his back catalogue, you can see the progression that Sam’s work has taken from first album of lo-fi, self produced, bedroom recordings (The Creek Drank The Cradle) all the way up to the bigger, more polished and professional sounding Woman King, with Our Endless Numbered Days bridging that gap nicely. The Shepherds Dog is a nice continuation of this journey towards a more mainstream sound, but I for one think that it may go slightly too far, almost crossing the line into mass-produceable, radio-friendly pop.
Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing necessarily bad about this, it’s just that for me, the whole charm (and the whole point) of Iron & Wine was the feeling that you were listening to genuine songs from a genuine guy who wasn’t making this music for anyone but himself. Since then, Sam has found himself an audience and (perhaps unfortunately) started playing for them.
The character and old world charm of Sam’s uniquely smokey voice sometimes seems lost amongst all the production, and I cannot for the life of me fathom why anyone would think that putting a digital effect on the vocals (track 4, Carousel) would be a good idea. Having said all that, it’s not by any means a bad album. Any existing Iron & Wine fan will appreciate it for what it is, and it’s a nice introduction for anyone else.
Check out Iron & Wine’s MySpace here, and the official site here.
The Shepherds Dog goes on general release September 25th.
-Dave.
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