Review: Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
Posted on 29 August 2007 | 5 Comments
Sam Beam and company are back with a great new Iron & Wine record called The Shepherd’s Dog just in time for the dog days of summer. About a year ago when I saw Iron & Wine’s set at Lollapalooza, something was missing. The crowd was too frantic and the setting not at all right. This is music that would best be enjoyed from a front-porch rocking chair while sipping sweet tea or any cold beverage of your choice. Beam’s hushed vocals and gentle acoustic guitar strums evoke images of the rural South straight out of a William Faulkner novel. I can almost see the grand white columns of a plantation house and hear the crickets in the background.
Naturally, The Shepherd’s Dog picks up right where the Woman King EP left off. It is full of the same loose and lazy swamp folk that that we’ve known since the band’s early days, but with more instrumentation and (at times) a more primal and rhythmic feel. It blossoms into an organic and almost timeless record that is one of the best I’ve heard all year. Between Beam’s breathy drawl and a few subtly raucous stomps, The Shepherd’s Dog has an enveloping sound that just gets into your pores and makes you sweat before ultimately cooling you down through the the graceful exit of “Flightless Bird, American Mouth”. And even though the air conditioning is on I can just about feel the humid Florida heat pumping through my speakers when the credits finally roll.
MP3 | Iron & Wine – Boy With A Coin The Shepherd’s Dog
MP3 | Iron & Wine – Lovesong Of The Buzzard The Shepherd’s Dog
Filed Under: Album Reviews, Americana, Folk
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