Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam has sifted through many different styles and influences beginning with his first album in 2002.
Since then, he’s collected all of these varieties together to blend a soothing, yet expansive new album, Ghost on Ghost.
Once again, listeners are welcomed to the colorful garden of Beam’s musical paradise.
Beam planted himself as an indie folk icon with his soft and endearing acoustics in the band’s first album The Creek Drank the Cradle. However, throughout his career, the experimental Beam has taken tastes from West Africa to the psychedelic, as each new approach has been a growing branch to Iron & Wine’s sturdy folk roots. The songs grew from emotional, quiet, acoustic meditations to grandiose full-band tracks.
Now, this tree is finally blossoming with all of Beam’s facets consistently coming together in harmony throughout.
Beam brings in typical, but always enjoyable elements of his usual routine, like acoustic hooks and shining “ohh ahhs” in the versatile “Caught in the Briars.”
But what makes these songs glisten is the way Beam slides in fresh sounds like an orchestra in the amiably nostalgic “New Mexico’s No Breeze” and the illuminating “Sundown (Back in the Briars).”
Why Beam would have considered waiting this long to add strings to his ensemble is more of a mystery than what might be nesting inside his beard.
Ghost on Ghost is a sweet spring day without that sticky humidity. All of its dimensions are clean and refreshing, with enough energy to put a bounce in your step.
Even the heavier and mysterious side of the album is taken in with optimism due to Beam’s mystical whispers of “all the colors of the world” in “Grass Widows,” or his strange contentment in the dark lullaby “Winter Prayers.”
But despite all of the different dimensions that complete Ghost on Ghost, Beam makes it an intimate experience between him and the listener.
“It all came down to you and I,” Beam confidently repeats on “Grace for Saints and Ramblers.”
The simple line is a gentle reassurance that behind all the horns, strings and shimmering harmonies, Beam is forever sustaining a personal relationship with his adoring audience.
Dive Verdict: ????
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