#25: In the Reins

Iron and Wine/Calexico, In the Reins.
You've got to start somewhere, so I'll start small with an EP. As if the guy needed a stage name (Iron and Wine) and as if his previous work suggested he needed a backup band (the excellent-in-their-own-right Calexico), Sam Beam has moved ahead and knitted another timeless set. Though only seven songs long, each track on In the Reins is a slight embellishment on Iron and Wine's recipe, made possible by Calexico's instrumentation. The muted trumpet in "Burn That Broken Bed" for example creates Beam's first urban-sounding folk tune. Pedal steels, horns, banjos, harmonica all play prominent roles throughout the album. It's really just more of a good thing. But the best instrument, Beam's hushed voice, is still rightly the centerpiece.

The EP's creamy filling--tracks 3-5--is worth the price of In the Reins alone. "History of Lovers" is a most straightforward rocker, complete with full horn section to carry it home. "Red Dust" is the evolving Southern-revival stomp (with some Don Henley-sounding keys), and "16, Maybe Less" is the tearjerking ballad. A pristine sequence.

Really, for all I know, Beam has a stash of long-lost recordings from some 1940s would-be folk-blues legend that he is slowly ripping off. But I doubt it.