Samuel Beam has been making records under the Iron & Wine moniker since 2002, specialising in lo-fi, hushed, folksy acoustic storytelling, but 2007?s The Shepherd?s Dog?s full band and upbeat tempos opened a new chapter.
It was difficult to categorise (if indeed you desire the ordered world of categorisation) and took sounds from different places musically and geographically. Its skill wasn?t in its courage for plucking ideas from far-flung corners but in the casualness with which it carried it out.
It doesn't scream its influences in your face, Albarn-like. Instead it found the thread that runs through folk music regardless of its origin. You might spot calypso, west African, or dub if you listened out for it but you'd probably just hear infectious songs sung with a gentle lilt.
Iron & Wine stopped off ?in Manchester as part of their tour to support fourth album Kiss Each Other Clean. The bearded Beam was surrounded by seven musicians for an evening of re-arranged songs culled from all four albums and more besides. ??.
The arrangements were intricate and songs flowed into each other beautifully. It's exciting to watch a band make such complex material look so effortless. What isn't quite so exciting is watching a band having a jam, which is what the performance lapsed into on a few occasions. And then there's the saxophone. It worked when it was just one part of many, but even then it dominated.
Now it's difficult for hecklerspray to have perspective on this issue. The evil of saxophone ran rife in the eighties ruining otherwise good ballads left, right and centre, all in the name of injecting ?class?. Since then we wince when one is blown (?one? being a saxophone, not ?one? as in the Queen?s English first person singular, although we suppose technique is a contributing factor in both cases).
It's hard to fault the songs chosen and Beam?s material, when concise, was warm and his voice was ethereal but strong. The band, when they were slightly reined in, added an uplifting quality to the old material and did justice to the new.
Refreshing also for a band to play for so long and then do a simple one-song encore rather than the modern-day standard of manipulatively leaving three of the biggest hits for the end. An enjoyable night, just one where on accasion there was bit of distance between performers and audience.
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