The world’s best poets can break your heart with only a handful of words. So it is with Iron & Wine (moniker of musician Sam Beam), and his latest album Hen’s Teeth. The Americana-suffused indie-folk-rock musician has brought listeners another gentle devastation. Tissues ready, it’s about to get heavy.
That’s a deliberate oxymoron: gentle devastation. The music of Iron & Wine, at base level, is one man and his guitar. This has been the weapon of choice for any number of heartbreakers, from Elvis to Simon & Garfunkel to Hozier. There is ornamentation, of course: Hen’s Teeth features two collaborations from fellow Americana-folksters I’m With Her, a handful of session musicians from across the American folk scene, and harmonies on a few tracks from Beam’s daughter Arden. But at base level, it’s Beam and his guitar that drive the music.
It’s not complex music either – and that’s not a put-down. The harmonies are rich, especially in the two duets with I’m With Her: ‘Wait Up’ is the more luscious, and at times oneiric, with I’m With Her’s three-part harmonics a beautiful counterpoint to Beam’s guitar and vocals.The melodies, however, are simple and sweet: it’s as if the audience is seated around the fire at a cook-out, or a summer picnic, and Sam and his friends are treating us to a jam session. A gentle devastation.
Because really, truly, the lyrics are devastating. Attending an Iron & Wine concert is the first time I’ve been brought to tears by live music. Take ‘Paper and Stone,’ so intimate a portrait of a relationship and its end that Taylor Swift could only dream of it. Its refrain of “Say who we are, paper and stone, say who we are, stone and scissors” is poetic enough, but it’s the opening verse that hits closest to the bone, leaning heavily on the “one flesh” idea of marriage: “But for the time we fell in two, You’d be me and I’d be you, One crust of bread could fit in our mouth, You’d breathe in and I’d let it out.” Or there’s a paean to unrequited love in lead single ‘In Your Ocean’ – “When we make for dry ground, Though we really oughta drown, All those leaves keep sinking in slow motion, I don’t want to be saved, How I wish you felt the same, When I find myself swimming in your ocean.” The poetry speaks for itself, but it’s hard to maintain one’s resolve on hearing such wistful lyrics, no matter how jaunty the tune that carries them.
Hen’s Teeth is Beam’s eighth studio album under the Iron & Wine moniker, and serves as an excellent jumping-on point for new fans. For established fans, it pairs neatly with its predecessor Light Verse, offering exactly what we want from Beam: beautiful, easy-going music that plays with our emotions even as it leaves us feeling blissed out.
As musically beautiful as it is emotionally devastating, Hen’s Teeth is another excellent offering from Iron & Wine. Easy to listen to, rich in melody and harmony, it’s got everything you need to soundtrack a quiet summer evening in a hammock.
