Review Summary: Samuel Beam takes a long, long walk away from home.
When an artist begins making changes, it can certainly be exciting. It can also be frightening, revolting, disappointing, upsetting, disconcerting or any other appropriate gerund you’d like to attach to the list. Iron & Wine’s colorful new release,
Kiss Each Other Clean, is at least the beginning of just that kind of change. The imminent problem for any listener, then, is deciding whether that change comes through successfully or not. The result: sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.
Before you even pop the CD in, set the needle down on the vinyl or click play on your computer, the differences from Iron & Wine’s past releases are blatantly obvious. The cover of the album is a picture of Samuel Beam, standing in a river with peacocks milling behind him and what looks like a burning house in the background. At first, this doesn’t seem all that different from anything in the past. It’s rustic (see
The Creek Drank the Cradle), it showcases wildlife (see
Shepherd’s Dog) and it even features the man-of-the-hour himself (see
Our Endless Numbered Days). But this time, Beam decided to add color. Lots of color. Blues, greens, purples, oranges. And it’s also composed entirely of outlines, like an intricate neon sign. So, regardless of what you’ve heard, I’m sure you’d expect something new by now.
In this case, “new” covers a lot of ground. Samuel Beam’s attitude is what really makes the difference here. Where before, Beam was whispering about nature and its beauty (like a good romantic), now he’s turned over to preaching (or at least a good talking-to). Albums like
The Creek were really focused on unproduced, folk-like tones.
Kiss Each Other Clean takes a well-produced, forward stance. The first track, “Walking far From Home,” begins with a loud, sudden drum rudiment and leads into ominous guitar reverb as Beam belts out his best melodic voice that sounds reminiscent of modern-day church hymns. Then again, this is anything but “Shout to the Lord” or Hail Marys. Beam’s lyrics are rich and overflowing with visceral imagery. He sings about “sinners making music,” car crashes in the country, “naked dancers in the city” and prisoners taking up pistols.
On the track “Rabbit Will Run,” he sings about pigs lying in piss, on “Monkeys Uptown,” he warns the listener to not “f*** around,” and on the same track he claims that “no one likes a beggar slightly overdressed.” Beam is clearly taking a firmer stance on this record as he starts to approach thematic elements such as acceptance in the face of hardship or change. Everything in his language is stark and clear as the subject matter consists of people and places that make him want to sing rather than the elements of nature he used to only whisper about. It would seem to be an appropriate change.
But appropriate is an odd word choice when considering the mash-up of music this album really is. “Me and Lazarus” has a moderately-paced bass line, blips and beeps (Sufjan’s
Age of Adz anyone?) and a jazzy saxophone solo, very reminiscent of the moody track “Burn That Broken Bed” from
In the Reins. The saxophones on “Big Burned Hand” take the jazz aspect to an entirely new level and almost reach funk status, which some--myself included--might argue makes the album feel comical by the second half. “Monkeys Uptown” is riddled with xylophones, electric guitars and strange background noises that sound like tracking devices on shuttles. “Half Moon” has a chorus of girls in the background belting out some “doo-wops,” “Rabbit Will Run” features the Balafon that sounds ripped straight out of Disney’s
The Lion King and “Godless Brother in Love” is a quiet, piano-heavy ballad in the same--yet subtler--mold as Chicago’s 80’s hit “Hard to Say I’m Sorry.” In the words of the first track, it’s definitely “Walking far From Home.”
As I finally reached
Kiss Each Other Clean’s 7-minute closer, “Your Fake Name is Good Enough for Me,” I felt compelled to draw some sort of conclusion on Iron & Wine’s riskiest endeavor yet. The song is a culmination of everything the rest of the album brought to the table: electric guitar riffs, saxophones, trumpets, a quick pace and a distinct, strong leading voice. It ends with a long, repeated refrain of “We will become,” and, according to his lyrics, we will become a lot of things: the blessing, the curse, the hammer, the nail, the cruel, the kind, again and again. It’s poetic to be sure, and there’s nothing more any fan of Iron & Wine could possibly expect. Yet still, as the guitars and saxophone slowly give out and leave me with nothing, I feel something very similar to when I first listened to Sufjan Steven’s comparably-experimental release,
Age of Adz. Confusion.
But is it a discouraging confusion, or is it a thrilling confusion? Both, really. For some, this might be a walk way too far away from the home of
Shepherd’s Dog or
Our Endless Numbered Days. But for others, this could be the type of change that makes the listener want to jump on the wagon and see where the ride takes them. And that’s the preferred type, you would think--the one that forces you to evolve with Beam.
