Iron and Wine
The Shepherd’s Dog
(Sub Pop, 2007)

Sam Beam has managed an impressive feat. By creatively insisting through a string of decent albums that his art loses nothing with a full band and a studio, he has either subdued or surpassed the impassioned expectations of those who swooned completely for his breathy, homespun debut. I would tend to lump myself in with the subdued; I was a sucker for the manufactured lo-fi wooden-shack charm of his Creek Drank the Cradle sessions, and haven’t been bowled over to that extent by anything he’s done since. But that’s the difference between “good” and “spectacular.” The first one caught us all off guard, jerked genuine tears, and set the bar impossibly high. Everything since has ranged within goodness from “pretty” to “quite,” yet nothing has really hit that original level of excellence. Granted, it’s apples and oranges; it’s not as though he’s tried and failed, he’s simply gone for something else. Rather than throw the same lightning at the same spot and hope to strike twice, he immediately moved on, bringing some of us with him and replacing the strays with inductees friendlier to the new production. As a result, with each successive album he’s managed to stretch his wings as an artist, free from the dusty basement singer-songwriter cage that made him famous, regardless of how well that cage seemed to suit him.

The Shepherd’s Dog will do little to win back deserter fans of his sparse debut, but it does well to continue concretizing his position at the fluid forefront of progressive folk. With the help of Calexico’s Joey Burns, it will also surely make true believers of fans of the two bands’ collaboration EP, In the Reigns. “Lovesong of the Buzzard” features a pleasant organ whine, some accordion, and Beam’s patented jangly slide guitar, plus the unmistakable input of Mr. Burns in its deep, steady standing bass. “Boy With a Coin” also seems to reflect the Burns influence with its rhythm section. Overall, Shepherd’s songs maintain the familiar Sam Beam structural style with modern Southern Gothic Bible overtones woven throughout, along with the more recently familiar full-band jamminess and continually expanding tradition of making the most of the studio. Down home bells and whistles abound, such as at the onset of “House by the Sea”, which wafts in on soft vibes, reverse-delay chimes, and some funky single-note harmonica with subtle rhythmic effects in the background. “Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)” has the echoey vocals and instrumental pauses reminiscent of Michael Damian’s ‘80s hit “Rock On”, yet with trippy elements of dub reggae rhythm, guitar, and weirdness.

Balancing these eccentricities are straightforward and mellow songs like “Resurrection Fern” and “Flightless Bird, American Mouth”, as well as “The Devil Never Sleeps”, which picks it up with honky-tonk piano and an up-tempo country/Southern rock swing. Ultimately the album never wanders too far from its various rural music conventions. Rather it combines them into a package that would play well, with all due respect, in say a Whole Foods store somewhere in Georgia, or the patchouli incense-clouded dorm rooms of Collegetown, USA. It’s a solid album and an enjoyable listen under any circumstance, but loses something in the distance created by all its studio infusions, which really hang more like decorations rather than bear any load at the heart of these songs. It’s also worth noting that at the moment I’m about as easy a target as this album could hope to find—a San Francisco indie-folk fan currently fighting off chiggers in rural Tennessee. I’m writing this in overalls from a wooden porch on the grounds of The Farm, and though The Shepherd’s Dog fits like a charm, I still can’t say that I’m moved in any profound way. It’s an impressive pool in which Beam and company tread, though the splashing still falls shy of the quieter storm he stirred back when it was just one man with his feet in the tub.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]