Our Endless Numbered Days is very subdued, thoughtful, melodic, and downright beautiful album and the new sound is more of a progression than a sudden shift in values, production or otherwise.
It's in this sense that Beam is, above all else, a poet: His tabletops are littered with gritty little snapshots of life well-lived, strewn with tender acoustic strums, pictures of the ocean, shaken maracas, mothers, fathers, arms. It's a beautiful display.
Iron & Wine isn’t an easy place – death and sorrow are never far from the surface – but Beam knows that there’s nothing more healing or more uplifting than giving vent to your dreams and fears and letting them all glide away on a breath of wind. Real or imagined.
It’s easy to see Beam as a Southern gothic fabulist with his songs of torched farmyards, junebugs and bougainvillea blooms, bodies in the grass and ravens in the corn.
An extended treatise on human mortality and the inevitable passing of time - glowering existentialism glimpsed through sweet, Southern fecundity ... Contrastingly life-affirming.
"Less is more" is an annoying cliché, but I find myself wishing that Iron and Wine and Brian Deck had put a little more faith in it. ... Beam's distinctive songs are most endearing when their rustic quality is matched by their production.
Iron & Wine is an artist I know from 2 things, 1 being my friend recommending this album to me when I wanted to hear a good folk album, and their cover of The Postal Services "Such Great Heights", a song that is very close and dear to my heart, and the cover was surprisingly faithful to the source material.
So I went into this album with nothing much to go off of other than that said cover, and holy shit, I am glad I checked this out. This was just so relaxing and beautiful, and ... read more
album swap with @TehSniper_143 hosted by @ConcreteCastles. thanks for the rec, this shit is beautiful. the atmosphere of this album is so calming. i don’t really have that much to say other than that. throughout the entire album , this thing consistently remains beautiful. i’m not really that knowledgeable on folk so if i like it that’s saying something
verryyy close to an 85 but for now keeping it for this. this was really lovely tho. think my favorite moments of this are when it goes fully stripped back and is just him and a guitar but i found every track at least somewhat likable. tons of gorgeous moments definitely
This album was a pretty big part of my childhood. My standout tracks are: "Naked As We Came," "Cinder and Smoke," "Fever Dream," and "Sunset Soon Forgotten."
1 | On Your Wings 3:53 | 89 |
2 | Naked as We Came 2:33 | 94 |
3 | Cinder and Smoke 5:44 | 92 |
4 | Sunset Soon Forgotten 3:20 | 90 |
5 | Teeth in the Grass 2:22 | 81 |
6 | Love and Some Verses 3:40 | 87 |
7 | Radio War 1:56 | 75 |
8 | Each Coming Night 3:28 | 86 |
9 | Free Until They Cut Me Down 4:35 | 83 |
10 | Fever Dream 4:16 | 90 |
11 | Sodom, South Georgia 4:59 | 87 |
12 | Passing Afternoon 4:01 | 90 |
#46 | / | Pitchfork |