Iron and Wine: The Shepherd’s Dog

Sam Beam is a powerful and poetic songwriter who benefited greatly from the stripped down, simple production of his early recordings. His words and music could stand on their own, without the need for artifice or embellishment.

The Shepherd’s Dog, Beam’s third full-length LP as Iron and Wine, finds him sinking deeper into the opportunities to augment that come with greater popularity and expensive recording sessions. The reliance on gloss throughout The Shepherd’s Dog is surprising and disheartening, obfuscating Beam’s message and meaning beneath a bevy of vocal effects and shallowly mixed instruments.

High-end production values have benefited Beam in the past, giving songs like “16, Maybe Less” from the In the Reins EP a crisp clarity that emphasized the emotional subject matter. Here, however, they act like a pane of frosted glass between the music and the listener, letting brief glimpses through but ultimately keeping the total experience sequestered out of reach.

There are a few diamonds in the rough, though, particularly the one-two punch of “Lovesong of the Buzzard” and “Carousel,” on which Beam seems the least encumbered. Even still, the latter is hampered by a vocal effect that makes Beam sound like he’s singing through a babbling brook. “Lovesong of the Buzzard,” on the other hand, is a breezy, bright song that meshes a smiling acoustic guitar melody with effervescent accordion flourishes amidst male/female vocals.

- Michael Patrick Brady

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