On 2007's The Shepherd's Dog, Sam Beam reinvented Iron & Wine, building out the whisper-quiet acoustic songs he'd made his name on into a strange and mysterious soundworld, using a full band and mastering the art of multitracking his own voice. It's tempting to think that the hard work was done there-- Beam established a new approach and made a great album in the process-- but Kiss Each Other Clean, the full-band follow-up, is in some ways even more ambitious than its predecessor. He's reaching in a few new directions here, pushing himself hard as a singer, and taking risks, some of which pan out and a few of which don't.
Broadly, Beam at this point is writing by far the most assertive melodies of his career. Not the best, necessarily, but the boldest and most forcefully phrased. Even the song that most clearly ties back to The Shepherd's Dog, album centerpiece "Rabbit Will Run", has a melody that's quite different from anything he's done before. "Rabbit Will Run" is an easy highlight-- the arrangement is fantastically detailed, driven by a heavily layered rhythm track that bubbles with hypnotic thumb piano, and balanced by sections where the rhythm drops out, leaving Beam's voice hovering over a strange mix of sounds that might be a chopped-up pan flute arranged into a loop. The guitar sounds like an old-fashioned modem. It's a weirdly intoxicating mix that exemplifies the imagination Beam brings to bear on his fuller sound-- he's not just putting some drums and bass behind his guitar and voice.
Some of his bolder decisions carry mixed results. Beam brings in a horn section on "Big Burned Hand" and "Your Fake Name Is Good Enough For Me", and it works well on the latter, the album's seven-minute closer. The horns are arranged loosely, responding a bit to the Tinariwen-ish guitar phrase that opens the song and pulling it into territory somewhere near Charles Mingus' "Haitian Fight Song". The horn scrum is nicely offset by Beam's layered, tight self-harmonies on the chorus, and it's also complemented by the ragged lead guitar part. On "Big Burned Hand", though, the honking sax is used as a device to try and make the song funky, and it's not a look Beam's really figured out yet-- it lumbers along for four minutes and is the one song where Beam's risks yield no reward.
The more elemental and important change, though, is how Beam sings these songs. On "Glad Man Singing", his voice is still a soft instrument, but he's really projecting, both on the lead and the backing harmonies he layers in behind himself. On "Me and Lazarus", he reverts to the unique whisper-plus-falsetto layering technique he perfected on The Shepherd's Dog and "Woman King", and as signature sounds go, it's a good one that sounds even more distinct when he contrasts it with the other approaches. There are places on the album where the mix of rhythm and electric piano reminds me of Still Crazy After All These Years-era Paul Simon, a writer whose scope is reminiscent of what Beam is now trying to bring to his work.
Kiss Each Other Clean isn't quite on the level of The Shepherd's Dog in terms of overall unity of vision. Oddly, even with Beam's generally bolder singing, it's also not quite as immediately striking. These songs are generally not the type to grab you right away, but there's enough mystery and melody there to call you back. It's an album that takes its time seeping in, and it's ultimately worth putting in the close listening that reveals its many details and delights.
