Kiss Each Other Clean, Iron & Wine, 25th January
Iron & Wine is the stage name of the heavily bearded singer-songwriter Sam Beam, a 36-year-old ex-film professor from South Carolina. Like many of his generation, Beam began his career in a bedroom, recording husky, lo-fi folk songs onto a four-track tape recorder, the pick of which became his first album, The Creek Drank the Cradle. When his decelerated cover of electro-pop song “Such Great Heights” appeared in the cult movie Garden State in 2004, it won him acclaim in alternative music circles. But his inclusion two years ago on the soundtrack to blockbuster Twilight, along with a more rhythmic sound, has opened the way to mainstream success, as his move to a major label reflects.
Beam’s charm lies in the grain of his voice. Hushed, intimate and mild, his delivery is so trustworthy one might imagine him as a professional lullaby singer (he is father to five daughters). Lyrically descriptive and poetic references to the natural world abound, yet by exploring poignant moments in human relationships he successfully avoids the hackneyed rustic idyll to which less imaginative folk artists often default. This new record, his first in three years, sees Beam attempting a fashionable 1970s pop radio sound—think Fleetwood Mac, Elton John—which he achieves with aplomb.
