Album Review: Iron and Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean
By You Can't Hear it on the Radio
March 31, 2011
You Can't Hear it on the Radio is a blog about the current golden age of music. At no time since the 1960s has there been such an output of quality music by so many varied artists. Add to that technology that makes it easier than ever for the curious to find good music today. But, like an unlimited selection at an all-you-can-eat buffet, there's no table service. You will have to seek it out. The old model is dead. Generally speaking, you can't hear it on the radio. You can learn about it here, though.
Sam Beam's latest portfolio is an astonishing step forward in songwriting and arrangement. What started as a DIY project ironically carrying a full band name - ironic because in that phase Beam's music was hushed, intimate, and pointedly solo - has evolved over the course of four proper albums plus four more EPs into a confident, full band sound worthy of the name Iron and Wine.
For Kiss Each Other Clean the sonic evolution includes an overall '70s sensibility, including soft rock arrangements, Beach Boy harmony, Lite FM sax, sentimentality worthy of Heatwave, plus a few electronic tricks cleverly executed. In its quieter moments the album references Elton John and Van Morrison as touchstones; other times you're tempted to hear Steely Dan or early Genesis. These influences and production techniques combine to make Kiss Each Other Clean a vast departure from prior work. Even if you've picked up on Beam's development and expansion from album to album so far, the degree to which Kiss Each Other Clean forges new paths is startling at first.
The fun starts right from track one, "Walking Far From Home". A wave of grey noise rolls in like a thundercloud to provide the backdrop to Beam's multi-tracked vocal; in contrast his voice has never sounded so "produced," nor as assertively pretty as it does on this song. Flourishes fade in and out throughout the song - a restrained piano, a drum section, falsetto harmonized backing vocals, some electronic effects - never lingering too long, but sparsely adding their contribution then getting out of the way of the centerpiece of the track - Beam's voice. As an introduction to the themes and sonic palate of the rest of the album, "Walking Far From Home" evokes the feeling of entering a sacred space.
Though Beam has broadened his musical spectrum substantially, Kiss Each Other Clean has more to offer than just an expanded bag of sonic tricks. The main fear with any artist more than a couple albums in is, have they run out of things to say? Here the fear is unfounded, as Beam's storytelling and poetry is as strong as ever. On "Walking Far From Home", the observations of the narrator flesh out a pastoral scene:
I saw sunlight on the water
Saw a bird fall like a hammer from the sky
An old woman on a speed train
She was closing her eyes, closing her eyes
I saw flowers on a hillside
And a millionaire pissing on the lawn
Saw a prisoner take a pistol
And say join me in song, join me in song
Later, on the album's best song, "Big Burned Hand", Beam weaves a story of the eternal conflict between love and war. The story unfolds like a community theater play, with humanity along for the ride, audience and protagonist in one and unable to resist the urgent beckoning of either influence.
When the winsome God of war came to set me free
He had a couple of Coke bottles full of gasoline
Saying, "All I love is all that I allow."
and he blew me a kiss off a big burned hand
I nearly choked with smoke and fell down
While the lion and the lamb kept shooting at a tin can
It's heady stuff, and let's just call it - it's the best music Beam has made to date. For fans of the quiet preciousness that marked his earlier work - don't bother trying to compare. Those albums are excellent to be sure but the train is moving forward, not backward. Treat Kiss Each Other Clean instead as the debut work of an artist working at the height of his creative power and it will reward your repeated listens in full as you get to know this sound. There's masterful songwriting underlying it all.
A songwriter with something to say and a desire to find new ways to say it - Sam Beam is a blessing to anyone to whom music matters.
Rating: Great
--Steve
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