Sam Beam developed an album that has a sense of uncontrollable ADD, for better and for worse.
Sam Beam's new album opens with something so intricate and definitive-- “Walking Far From Home” is a track that will end up as one of my favorites for 2011. It's as if Beam hung out with long-track professional Sufjan Stevens just enough to make musical inconsistencies happen, then took up Justin Vernon's recent knack for making auto-tune somewhat legitimate. There also seems to be a touch of masterful vocal-blending that's comparable to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young's “Carry On.”
However, the magnificence of the album's first song may end up hurting the listener's feelings. “Me and Lazarus” comes out of nowhere, giving off an awkward vibe with instrumentation that just feels weird. Weird for that standard style of Beam. He gets rid of that comfortable folky-ness and creates sort of a sonic mess.
Once the third track plays you can hear that traditional acoustic-guitar strum- and all of a sudden you hear Michael Angelakos of Passion Pit? No...then some smooth jazz thing? Uh...
The rest of the album sorta plays out like that. I suppose I ought to give him credit for expanding his palette, but in reality it's really uncomfortable.
Typical Sam can be picked up slightly in “Godless Brother In Love,” a mellow, acoustic-and-piano track that attempts to resonate like Our Endless Numbered Days. The follow-up is painful for me to listen to-- “Big Burned Hand” is a what, some sort of funk-jam session? It was like the large amounts of filler-music I saw performed at a Parliament-Funkadelic concert I attended sometime ago, without the mesmerizing charm of George Clinton's rainbow hair.
The album's extraordinary first song builds up listeners for relative disappointment, for all-in-all, it seems that Iron & Wine has created a more inconsistent sound that just got overly-excited every time a new instrument or guitar sound was introduced. These inconsistencies are the basis for a series of songs that lack the memorability and deep sensitivity of Sam's previous work.
How the hell does a song "hurt the listener's feelings"? And how do you master something that sucks as much as long songs? If it was possible, I doubt Sufjan Stevens would be the one to do it.
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