Iron and Wine Try Something New
The only delight carried throughout solo artist Samuel Beam’s songs is the instrumental solace that keeps you listening.
Singer and songwriter Beam has a raspy voice that will make your heart melt, but within each song in this album, it is hard to decipher the lyrics he is singing.
If you look up the lyrics you may find that they are comforting to some extent, but it truly depends on your taste in music.
Usually Iron and Wine is compared to the contemporary Andrew Bird. However, through “Ghost on Ghost,” the music reminds you of early 60s and 70s rhythms, leading his resonance of indie folk and rock to fall short.
If you are an Iron and Wine fan, you can hear the notable difference of sound from his previous records.
His soft and elegant music and lyrics have taken a dramatic turn towards a funk and pop.
In fact, only two songs resemble the well-known folk that used to be Iron and Wine.
There is a noticeable change in Beam’s performance.
Perhaps it’s because most try to compare all of Iron and Wine’s songs to the famous “Naked as We Came.”
This elegant song is comparable to the new tracks “Winter Prayers” and “Baby Center Stage.”
However, the two are significantly different from each other and do not have the same meaning as “Naked as We Came.”
Believing the new album to resemble the appeal of the 2004 album, it was hard to muster up the courage to continue through the new album.
The change in creativity may either feel like a daring experiment for Iron and Wine, or just a search for a new audience.
In any case, the revised musical performance of jazz and blues mixed with a polite sass of gospel free verse sends this album into a completely different category of music.
With every album before “Ghost on Ghost,” connecting to find love, being with a lover, or simply enjoying life, Beam’s newest work seems to be a quiet reminder of what seems to be a very private past experience and an altered lifestyle.
With the enormous gap of silence between his previous album from 2011, “Kiss Each Other Clean,” Beam decided to deliver a new allure to his music.
By doing so, he changed his image completely from what might be considered a down to earth, riveting lyricist, to a soul man of the 21st century.