Iron and Wine |
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Will Oldham’s got a lot to answer for. Practically kick-starting alt-country all on his own was an achievement. He’s no less interesting now than he was five, ten years ago, but we’ve had to put up with the stragglers who attempt to emulate him for a good long while now. The genre is easy enough to play-by-numbers without too much thought, due mainly to its deceptive simplicity. Whereas that other great guitar-boys-who-don’t-like-to-plug-in icon, Nick Drake, made you work bloody hard as a listener and as an impersonator with alternative tunings and spellbindingly complex fretwork, much of the new boys-with-guitars have disappointed me by sounding just like Oldham and adding nothing new. I know a good few people myself who have fallen into the alt-country sensitivity mire where before they’d be trying to do something a little more, y’know, individual. So I approached yet another beardy guy with a geetar, a hand-painted record sleeve and the sound of nature in his heart with nothing short of alarm. Do we really need another?
Iron and Wine’s third album, Our Endless Numbered Days, but the first for singer Sam Beam inside the recording studio rather than onto his four-track suggests that in the main, yes, we do. It comes down to whether you’re willing to believe in what he’s singing to you, which I think has been my main problem with the glut of singer-songwriters these days. When Beam whispers his songs, seemingly from somewhere inside you, seemingly only to you, it’s hard not to. There’s a lovely depth and sincerity to his songwriting and performance here that’s refreshing for someone like me who was wondering why most of the people who attempt this sort of thing come away empty-handed. ‘Naked As We Came’, with its Drake-like ambling guitar backing is lit up by the close harmonies of Beam and his sister Sara; it takes on an elegiac quality, mournful yet almost celebrational of the love that will continue long after death: “One of us will die inside these arms/Naked as we came/One will spread our/Ashes round the yard.”
It’s a mood that pervades the whole album – a kind of devoted wistfulness which never descends into whimsy or jarring cod-country. He uses the language of the many songs you’ve heard before but runs a personal and unique thread through the core of it, perfectly evoking situations you have never experienced but can, with his help, imagine in detail: “Be this sunset one for keeping/This june bug street sings low and lovely/Those band-aid children/Chased your dog away…”
The gorgeous slide guitar of ‘On Your Wings’, which then builds to a more full-on, louder, brasher song shows the emotional and musical extent of what Beam can do. He’s surpassed most of his peers on the basis of one studio album. Can’t recommend this enough.
Dermot Fitzsimons
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