Iron & Wine:Kiss Each Other Clean

6.9/10 dropps
Record Label: 4AD / Warner Bros.

At long, long last, Sam Beam has graced his dedicated fan base with the follow-up album to
his 2007 The Shepherd’s Dog arrangement. On the 2007 album, we saw Beam take his first bold turn away from his breathy, folk-rooted standards to incorporate a wider range of instruments and a broader stretch of vocal prowess. Kiss Each Other Clean, which was released on January 25th through Warner Bros. (Iron & Wine has until now been a Sub Pop outfit), expands upon its predecessor’s genre bends. The majority of the new album weaves through a percussive, experimental atmosphere that definitely works in some instances but falls short in others.

On Kiss Each Other Clean, Beam’s impressive, literary lyrics are still predominantly naturalistic and quasi-religious. Some songs like “Me & Lazarus,” “Godless Brother In Love,” and the lengthy album-closer “Your Fake Name Is Good Enough For Me” more overtly address religious sentiments and exegetical efforts. Other tracks are more broad-sweeping explorations of other familiar Iron & Wine motifs like the desire for a simple love and attempts to glean understanding from difficult or seemingly tragic life events.

The late 2010 Walking Far From Home EP turns out to have been pretty closely representative of the new Iron & Wine soundscape. With Kiss Each Other Clean, Sam Beam’s elements of choice were percussive, electronic undertones glazed with a jazzy, funk-inspired line of bass and strings, as well as piano reminiscent of “Kingdom Of The Animals” (Around the Well, 2009). This fresh attempt at bolder genres was a success in some instances, albeit a time-consuming pill to swallow for fans whose favorite tracks constitute the likes of 2004’s Our Endless Numbered Days or 2002’s The Creek Drank the Cradle debut.

In a possible attempt to promote unity throughout the new album, Beam seems to have gone a tad overboard with use of the marimba. While it was a charming surprise on fall’s EP, its inclusion in nearly every track on Kiss Each Other Clean was tiresome and slightly gimmicky. Once I got over this minor annoyance, I was able to appreciate the other experimental elements of the album, such as Beam’s truly gifted vocal range, the grizzlier guitars, and the heavier bass. The only other element that was a little irksome was the gratuitous abuse of saxophone on “Big Burned Hand.” It simply didn’t fit.

While I commend Iron & Wine on an interesting, experimental sound with Kiss Each Other
Clean, the album isn’t perfect. Sam Beam has been one of my favorite musicians since his release of The Creek Drank the Cradle and not only does this newest effort seem a mite too far removed from any of his previous material, but his handling of the new genres is not as masterful as I would have expected. There are certainly glimmers of artful success buried in parts of the album: “Walking Far From Home” is still as gorgeous an arrangement as when it was released on the EP, and “Rabbit Will Run” contains the precisely correct balance of electronics and marimba (and even includes a delightful little flutey undertone).

Though I’m still ruminating over the riffs and arrangements of Kiss Each Other Clean’s ten tracks, I’ve found myself already looking forward, with hope, to another Iron & Wine album that molds the hybridized genres with a more thorough and practiced hand.

-Emily Simpson