Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream

It’s a story that’s as old as record companies. Singer-songwriter is unknown. Singer-songwriter finally makes it. Singer-songwriter becomes huge. Singer-songwriter releases backlog of unreleased and out-of-print tracks–the masses go crazy for it. But here’s the part with which I have the most trouble: isn’t there a reason why these tracks were unreleased and out-of-print? Shouldn’t we expect and want the artist to have some discretion about what we, the listener, hear from them? Instead, we go googly-eyed and begin drooling over every little Sufjan scrap or Iron & Wine iota or Death Cab diatribe (for the sake of alliteration).

Despite this small rant of mine, I have to tell you that Iron & Wine’s Around the Well is quite excellent. There’s very little of  that lo-fi, unedited, unpolished dredge that one expects from these type of albums. While Beam’s cover of The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” has been around the blogosphere quite a bit over the past year, most of the tracks here are new to the casual Beam listener. Leading off the album is  “Dearest Forsaken”, a twangy bluesy folk number whose amber tones are as deep as Sam Beam’s beard.  “Loud As Hope” is as sweetly enticing a song as I’ve heard in many moons, with I&W’s gentle rasp softly swaying with the ebb and flow of the waves on some remote shore in a parallel world. And with titles like “Friends are Jewels” and “Communication Cups and Someone’s Coats”, there’s something for even the most literary of listeners. “Belated Promise Ring” is an easygoing playful piano ditty, and the inherent irony in the song is not to shabby either.

There’s something here for everyone: the novice, the casual, and the experienced I&W listener. This is not your run-of-the-mill backlog album, this is a great album in its own right.

Grab a copy of Around the Well.

Listen to “Loud As Hope”

Listen to “Belated Promise Ring“