Iron+Wine: Kiss Each Other Clean OR Beardos with Golden Pipes: Godfather Edition

Unfortunately professional, like late career Paul Simon¹ or something. the Complacency Curse. I feel like producer Brian Deck saves his best stuff for Califone and shuffles his JV ideas off on the too-easy-going Sam Beam, who admittedly, is not firing on all (lyrical) cylinders either. I remember being psyched out of my mind when I thought he and Califone were recording an album together, a la Calexico, but it was only a tour together. Still I hoped he'd picked up some of their strange, original view on Americana, but instead Sam worked with their producer and set his sights on, he proclaimed, 70's FM. Back into that chest-hairy womb², huh?

Not that I don't enjoy the album; its tailor-made for bleary-eyed Sunday mornings, when you can disappear to do laundry and come back five minutes and pick up right where you left off. "Your Fake Name" has that great slowburning crescendo thing I'm a sucker for and "Tree by the River" is a keeper as well. But most of the rest falls into a Shepherd's Dog B-side no-man's land of mostly unmemorable tunes gussied up with fancy, sort of soulless production. I would LOVE to hear Sam fronting a genuine New Orleans ensemble, but I don't want him singing over a dude in Chicago's idea of what those Dr. John outfits sound like.³ These songs are Rube Golbergs where the eventual goal is to start the next song, forty hamster wheels later.

I put together a little ranking of essential Iron+Wine for the non-converts, and was mildly disturbed to realize most of the songwriting that I love from Sam is nearly ten years old. He had demos for 90% of the songs on these releases back when he sent Creek Drank the Cradle to Sub Pop back in 2002. I'm gonna try not to dwell on that too much.


Top Five Iron+Wine Albums

5. Our Endless Numbered Days
4. Around the Well
3. In The Reins
2. The Sea & the Rhythm/Woman King⁴
1. The Creek Drank the Cradle


ps
My favorite Sam song, still somehow unreleased:


¹pitchfork also used this as a touchstone, but i didn't read them til after i published this
² shag-carpeted womb might have been a better joke.
³ Big Burned Hand. ugh.
⁴yes, sonically and chronologically different EPs, but spliced up makes a great album. though i'm not sure i can ever listen to Jezebel again.