When Iron & Wine's Sam Beam was inadvertently outed as an affable film professor from a Miami university, quizzical glances began whizzing across record store floors almost immediately, as packs of perplexed fans attempted to reconcile Beam's gritty, unpretentious four-track folk to his thong-friendly, neon pink surroundings. Luckily, neo-blues banjo-crooner William Elliott Whitmore's hometown address checks out alright: Whitmore was raised in a small Iowa locale dug deep into the banks of the mighty, cred-bestowing Mississippi, thereby making it forever safe to presume his banjo theatrics and whiskey-drenched mumble have been, um, authentically rendered. Breathe easy.
Hymns for the Hopeless is Whitmore's proper debut, but his relaxed, porch-singer poses suggest he'd been playing the bedroom-poet game long before these compositions were being officially documented: Hymns pairs Whitmore's deep, throaty vocals with scratchy banjo and skittering harmonica, and the subsequent songs seem both intensely indebted (see Leadbelly, Doc Watson, and the grisly, murder-and-redemption narratives of Johnny Cash) and oddly anachronistic-- an artful, evocative fusion of bellowed country, sheepish folk, and filthy blues, as unexpected as it is familiar.
Percussion (usually delivered via handclap, and provided by Lucas Tweedy or the fantastically named Michael Cornelius Lust) occasionally breaks in, as does organ, bass, and some acoustic and brass finger guitar, but for the most part, Hymns is a one-man show-- and Whitmore's thick, easier-than-Waits growl is, fortunately, dynamic enough to carry nearly all of that burden. The record opens with an a capella lament to lifeless hearts ("Cold and Dead") that might fare better had it been buried a little deeper in; Whitmore's concentrated voice takes time to acclimate to, and "Cold and Dead", with a little over three minutes of pure, uninterrupted warble, can be a sort of overwhelming introduction.
"Sometimes Our Dreams Float Like Anchors" is a lilting, bang-and-whimper parable (check Whitmore's prophesizing: "I'll be free when I'm dead") told by way of slinging hammers and completed by feisty drum rolls, well-timed bings, and Whitmore's persuasively sweet strumming. "From the Cell Door to the Gallows" is Whitmore at his best: spare banjo plucks and a meandering vocal melody showcase his soulful, honest intentions and proclivity for wearied sighs.
Authenticity, regardless of its relative worth, is bound to be a big issue for Whitmore, mostly because Hymns borrows so heavily from its Delta predecessors, and does so in a way that's not particularly apologetic. He tackles the proper poetic terrain-- slow, sad songs about drinking, loving, losing, devils, and shotguns-- letting his voice quiver, bend, and purr just like his backyard river, rushing in all the right spots. So even if Hymns occasionally seems like paint-by-numbers blues, it's also an astoundingly well-rendered likeness, teeming with unmistakably genuine hollers and cries.
