Iron & Wine. What is that, exactly? Some sort of an upscale restaurant?

Nope.

Well then, maybe it's a new cooking show on the Food Channel.

Wrong again.

Oh wait, this is a divad23 review. So they must be a band.

Good guess. But still wrong. Close, though. Iron & Wine is a guy. Just one guy. That's it. I know, it's confusing, because you see a name that implies more than one thing, and therefore you expect more than one person. This sort of this has been confusing audiences for years, thanks to the likes of Five for Fighting and Nine Inch Nails.

But let's put our quibbles about naming conventions aside. The fact is that this one guy, whose real name is Sam Beam (no relation to Jim as far as I know), makes some exquisite folk music. It's the kind of stuff that gets acoustic singer/songwriter junkies like me excited. And sure, we've all heard the guy-with-a-guitar formula done to death, but that doesn't mean it can't be done well with the right set of ingredients. On I&W's latest disc, Our Endless Numbered Days, those latest ingredients include instruments like the banjo, washboard, and slide guitar that provide just the right amount of backwoods feel, plus clean production that neither overpowers the hushed feel of beam's songs nor further mutes it. It's a delicate balance befitting a delicate collection of songs. Not the kind of thing I'd expect from Sub Pop Records (I thought they were primarily an alternative/indie rock label?), but hey, I've gotta give 'em credit for branching out.

If I had to pick one word to characterize the sound of this album, that word would probably be "wood". That doesn't mean that the album feels wooden and lifeless, but rather, it feels very close to nature, like you're transported to a wooded mountain range in Beam's home state of Florida (if such things exist there) each time you listen to it. I guess that sort of makes sense, because most of the instruments involved here are made from wood. Beyond just the instruments, there's a gentle nature to Beam's vocals which causes him to wrap around the delicate guitar picking and whatever instruments are present, as if they're one organic continuum instead of separate elements. That's a weird way to describe Iron & Wine's music - I guess you just have to hear it to know what I'm talking about. It's not the kind of voice you might expect from the guy with the big scraggly beard who owns it (pictured in cartoon form on the album cover), but Beam's soft-spoken nature has its own charm, as if he's telling you a secret or singing you a lullaby. While it's usually somewhere between difficult and impossible to string together any sort of ultimate meaning to his free-flowing story songs, such things cease to matter when carefully crafted guitar melodies are trickling down around you like rain through a forest canopy and Beam's occasional falsetto is working its magic.

This is the kind of music that casts a spell on the listener, and because of that, it's earned a place alongside Sufjan Stevens and Eastmountainsouth in my list of folk artists to unwind to after a particularly stressful day. Fans of Sufjan in particular will probably enjoy Iron & Wine's approach, though it is a bit less "out there" and experimental in terms of its scope. And that may be the one slight drawback - while thoroughly pleasant, the album has a few songs that are tough to distinguish from one another due to similar picking patterns and melodic structures. There are lots of magical moments, but only a few songs that I feel are magical all the way through. This results in a lot of little snippets that replay themselves in my head hours later, and yet I have a tough time remembering which songs they belong to. That's not really a complaint - it's just an observation that sometimes this album can be more laid-back and familiar, like a lazy afternoon spent in a rocking chair on the porch rather than an exploratory mountaintop adventure. Familiar doesn't have to mean "boring", and to Beam's credit, it never does.

On Your Wings
God, there are guns growing out of our bones
God, every road takes us farther from home...
The album actually begins with one of its darker, more angular songs. If you've ever wondered what it would sound like if a guitar could whisper, then this song will probably serve as a good approximation. A very stern picking pattern is employed here to mute the guitar strings, which results in very short, percussive notes that create the framework for the song. This also creates a bit of squeaking noise as Beam's fingers traverse the strings, which just adds to the feeling of intimacy. Here, his hushed tone comes across as if it were a prayer from a frightened refugee, someone who realizes the evil nature of man and is pleading to be rescued. The song stays grounded, with the notes being picked around the same chord for most of it, other than a brief refrain, led by a slide guitar, which breaks out into a different chord but then gives in and settles back down to where the song started. A washboard is the dominant percussion instrument for most of the song (if you can call it dominant at all), though regular drums join in near the end of the song when it suddenly breaks out of its muted tone. Intriguing way to start off an album.

Naked as We Came
She says "If I leave before you, darling
Don't you waste me in the ground"
I lay smiling like our sleeping children
One of us will die inside these arms...
This song has a much more fluid melody than the last one, talking on the soft tone of a ballad but actually moving along at a quick pace, if you're listening to the guitar picking (which allows the notes to ring out a lot more) and not the pacing of the vocals. Beam's tone is more romantic and wistful here, and his lyrics seem to depict a conversation between an old married couple, with one of them realizing that their time together on earth may be over soon, simply due to their age. It's like a last wish being shared between the two of them, a request for a fitting farewell instead of just a standard burial. Weird thing to write a song about, but these are the kinds of people who populate Beam's world. When I listen to this song, I'm reminded of a verse from the book of Job that says, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return."

Cinder and Smoke
Give me your hand
Your mother is drunk as all the firemen shake
A photo from father's arms...
A definite highlight shows up here, and it's actually the longest track on the album, stretching out to a leisurely 5 1/2 minutes. Even though Beam's basic guitar picking pattern loops through the same four chords again and again for the whole song, this one is an exercise in changing the dynamic by adding and subtracting different elements. What sounds like hand drums, or perhaps just the gentle tapping of hands on a guitar, are the only noticeable percussion at the beginning, and Beam is back in "whisper" mode with his vocals, as if trying to offer comfort to someone who is suffering a great loss. His lyrics are difficult to pin down here in terms of what exactly is going on, but it's possible that he's describing the aftermath of a fire that claimed this person's farm and the lives of her parents. In between each verse, in which the phrases "Give me your hand" and "cinder and smoke" always appear as the first and fifth lines, respectively (Beam's songs tend to resemble poems more than standard verse/chorus songs in most cases), there's a simple chorus where he softly sings four long, sustained "ahhhhhhhh"s, taking a noticeable deep breath in between each. It's a bit jarring to hear him inhale like that - for most singers, this would be considered an imperfection in their vocal technique, but somehow, it adds another layer of personality to the song. Even more haunting than the soft cymbal taps and banjo which leak into the song as it unfolds are the overlapping vocals that finish off the song, which are higher-pitched, almost tribal-sounding chants that repeat "Ay-yay-yay-yay-ya-ya" over and over again, even after the other instruments fall away. The acapella vocals eventually come to an abrupt stop, giving the song a chilling end similar to Jars of Clay's "Fade to Grey".

Sunset Soon Forgotten
We've learned to hide our bottles in the well
And what's worth keeping, sun still sinking...
Fast and nimble finger-picking gives this song a tone similar to "Naked as We Came". We're treading familiar territory here with a few sparse verses and a slide guitar interlude to separate them, but this song is still a pleasant one, describing two very different days that both end in a sunset. One day seems to be memorable for bad reasons because of a conflict that seemingly involved drinking (that's the sunset he wishes he could forget), and one day is memorable for simple but good reasons, like the sounds of nature around him and children playing in the street. This is where I start to get the "front porch" feeling that permeates the album - even the mundane observations become indicative of something more meaningful when you stop and take things at Beam's pace.

Teeth in the Grass
And when you give me your house
When we're all brothers at last
There will be food in our mouths...
The "twangiest" song on the album so far is a bit of a puzzler - the banjo and guitar here take on more of a swampy, menacing tone, if it's possible for folk music to be in any way "menacing". It's probably the title that conjures up that mood, since I have to wonder if it was a backyard brawl that led to there being "teeth in the grass". (He repeats that line several times at the end of each verse.) However, the song seems less conflict-oriented and more concerned with the passage of time and our feeble pursuit of stuff, and how none of it will matter when, in the end, we're just skeletons buried in the dirt. That kind of makes sense, because don't the teeth last longer than most skeletal remains, thus making them a good way to identify a person? I don't know; Beam's songs are hard to interpret. But that obscurity is part of the appeal.

Love and Some Verses
From your changing contentments
What will you choose for to share?
Someday drawing you different
May I be weaved in your hair?
Probably the most straightforward "romantic" song on the album, this is one that I always seem to confuse with "Sunset Soon Forgotten" due to another slide guitar interlude that gets stuck in my head. It's a very pretty song, with lightly shuffling percussion that makes me think of a slow train chugging through the mountains. The song seems to be about how words and phrases like "I love you" are thrown around so lightly - Beam seems to be searching for a more meaningful way to express commitment to someone he loves rather than just writing more poetry. I'm not sure what he means by "May I be weaved in your hair?", but it's a lovely notion nonetheless.

Radio War
All the while that she wept
She had a gun by her bed
And a letter he wrote
From a dry, foundered boat...
The shortest song on the album is actually, in my opinion, the plainest. I don't know; I wish Beam had done something more with this one. His verse just run together, looping through the same melody as a mandolin or high-strung guitar just strums out on chord at a time in a slow, monotonous fashion. The song almost has a liturgical feel to it because of that, but I kind of prefer it when his songs are a tiny bit more complex and layered. The lyrics here are quite surreal, talking about ghosts and guns and dragons and snow. These things may be wartime metaphors, and the girl named "Sarah Jane" may be the widow of a soldier, but since the song runs under two minutes long, I don't have as much to go on. It's a curious piece if read as pure poetry, but I would have liked to see it fleshed out a little more.

Each Coming Night
Will you say when I'm gone away
"Your father's body was judgment day
We both dove and rose to the riverside..."
This lovely little song keeps the flowing, finger-picking style that worked in previous songs (the guitar does a nice job of doubling as bass by picking out enough low notes to keep the tune grounded), but exchanges the expected slide guitar for a little bit of banjo plucking. Listening to the lyrics, it's easy to tell that Beam is a bit preoccupied with death, the passing of time, and what will happen when he is gone. Here he's asking someone what they will say to or about him when he's gone, and he's hoping that one of the things said about him will be that "Your face has faded, but lingers on". I like how he ends each verse with a simple, "Oh-oh-oh-oh" and then repeats the last few words of the previous line. It kind of provides a hook for the song without giving it a repeating chorus.

Free Until They Cut Me Down
When the sea takes me like my mother's arms
I will breathe free as any word of God...
Another "swampy" song shows up here, mixing the moods of "Teeth in the Grass" and "On Your Wings" with an upbeat, swinging rhythm that makes it sound a bit like it would be the theme music for Old West bank robbers or something. Beam's tone is very confessional, as if he's a criminal who knows he's done something wrong, and knows that he'll get hung for it, and yet he seems to view his execution as freedom. (Again, I'm taking liberties with the esoteric lyrics.) This song seems to stick to one chord for the entire time, taking a repetitive, low-end acoustic guitar riff and overlaying it with more banjo plucking, and surprisingly lively drums that join in for the second half of the song. Beam also makes good use of his falsetto vocal once again, re-recording and layering his voice so that he can stay low and go high at the same time, with the higher harmony vocal dropping back down to meet the other one. It's definitely a change of mood when compared to its surroundings, but it's one of the best examples of Beam's voice-as-instrument technique.

Fever Dream
Some days, like rain on the doorstep
She'll cover me with grace in all she offers
Sometimes I'd like just to ask her
What honest words she can't afford to say...
This might just be the quietest song on the album, led by very gentle finger-picking that remains mostly in minor key. Beam has conjured up a captivating melody for this one that reminds me very much of Jars of Clay's instrumental piece "Frail" (weird that I&W would remind me of two of their songs from the same album, isn't it?), and the tune that he sings is very much like a lullaby, describing a girl who seems to give away her true feelings for him by talking or moving around in her sleep. Most songs that boasted a chorus such as "I want your flowers like babies want God's love, or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come" would probably sound like complete schmaltz, but somehow, Beam's soft and sweet tone holds it all together. Throw in a neat little mandolin break in the middle of the song, and it ends up with an almost medieval feel to it. This is definitely the album's most magical moment.

Sodom, South Georgia
Papa died while my girl Lady Edith was born
Both heads fell like eyes on a crack in the door...
This song is musically one of the most relaxed on the album, strolling along lazily like it's got a whole Sunday afternoon with nowhere to go (and that's saying a lot when compared with the rest of the album). The musical mood may seem strange when compared to the lyrics, which unflinchingly discuss the death of someone's father and the mockery of others in light of this tragedy, possibly even at the person's funeral: "White tongues hang out, God is good." Given the Southern location and the name of the town, it's possible that Beam is describing some deep-seated racism here, vaguely depicting the utter hypocrisy of some religious folks who find reasons to hate others and rejoice in the thought that they might be burning in Hell after their deaths. "Sodom" in the Bible was a city that got destroyed due to the hatred and wickedness of its inhabitants, and it's possible that Beam assigned that as a fictional name for the town where this took place. Then again, he could have made the whole thing up - but it's chilling nonetheless.

Passing Afternoon
There are things that drift away, like our endless numbered days
Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made...
The album ends on a breezy note, with a wandering piano joining the acoustic guitar for one more simple but lovely tune. Again, themes of growing up, getting married, the birth of children, the changing of seasons, and eventually death are prominent here - these life stages seem to fascinate Beam. "There are things that pass away, like our endless numbered days", he softly tells us, and you have to wonder how they can be both numbered and endless at the same time. Maybe it's memory that does that? Maybe it's up to the songwriters, poets, and other observers of the world to immortalize these moments? This song seems to have a lot to reveal when the lyrics are examined more closely. Many of Beam's songs are actually rather minimal on lyrics, but this one has a full five verses, and it brings the album to a gentle but effective conclusion.

Man, this has been a difficult album to describe. While it's easy for me to confuse the songs, that's not really a result of Beam writing the same tune over and over - he has different techniques for playing most of them, and yet the instrumentation is largely the same, which puts the focus on lyrics, melody, and the tonality of his voice. So it's tough to explain the subtle differences. In the end, all but a few songs stand out to me, and when taken as a whole, I think this album is a display of some great artistry. Perhaps a tiny bit more variation could move Beam's next album beyond simply being "pretty good" into the territory of "completely magical", but then, I think he's comfortable just letting these snapshots come out however they come out and not trying to make some grand statement with all of it.

Give this one a chance when you've got a lazy afternoon to curl up with a good book and soak it in. It takes some time to learn how to appreciate the subtler flavors of a few of these songs, but the process of doing that is definitely time well spent.

ALBUM WORTH:
On Your Wings $1.50
Naked as We Came $1
Cinder and Smoke $2
Sunset Soon Forgotten $1
Teeth in the Grass $1
Love and Some Verses $1.50
Radio War $.50
Each Coming Night $1
Free Until They Cut Me Down $1.50
Fever Dream $2
Sodom, South Georgia $1
Passing Afternoon $1
TOTAL: $15

Website: http://www.ironandwine.com

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Reading or Studying