CD REVIEW

Iron & Wine - 'The Shepherd's Dog'

Iron & Wine - 'The Shepherd's Dog'

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Ralph Barrera
AMERICAN-STATESMAN

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Alfredo

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Legend has it that an early title for the first Stephen Malkmus solo album was "Swedish Reggae." This would have been too cute by at least half, of course, and the album was ultimately self-titled. But you have to hand it to Iron & Wine, aka Sam Beam, and whoever is playing with Sam Beam — on "Wolves (A Song for the Shepherd's Dog)," he seems to have stumbled upon music that really, no kidding, sounds like Swedish reggae, equal parts folk-rock and spacey dub.

Oddly, this isn't too surprising. If you've ever seen Iron & Wine live (some might remember their fantastic set at ACL last year), you know that the songs can morph into jams with ease. With each record, Beam has added more and more instruments, more and more electric layers to be expanded on or peeled back live. "Shepherd's Dog" will make those transitions easier than ever.

But his songwriting remains essentially the same. The rhythms are still circular and lazy, the guitar still detailed and lovely, the lyrics still trying to parse love and sing odes to it at the same time, dipping into bizarre images; it's Bunuel via the Band.

Sonically, "Shepherd's Dog" is pretty far afield from the mumbled acoustic songs on the amazing debut "The Creek Drank the Cradle." But the evolution has never felt forced — these are the records Beam wants to be making, from the muffled clanging percussion on "Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car" to the steady hook on the single "Boy with a Coin." "Resurrection Fern" gets acoustic again; "House by the Sea" reminds you that Beam likes Paul Simon's "Graceland" as much as the Simon & Garfunkel records that his early work recalled. That is, his next giant leap seems like one small step.