Track Listing

1. Lion's Mane
2. Bird Stealing Bread
3. Faded From The Winter
4. Promising Light
5. The Rooster Moans
6. Upward Over The Mountain
7. Southern Anthem
8. An Angry Blade
9. Weary Memory
10. Promise What You Will
11. Muddy Hymnal

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4887 in Music
• Brand: IRON & WINE
• Released on: 2002-09-24
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Album Description
Debut album featuring Samuel Beam, they have been on the road with Ugly Casanova (Modest Mouse) and are described as intimate American Gothic style portraits & landscapes. Sub Pop. 2002.

Amazon.com
Iron & Wine is Sam Beam, a back-porch Florida singer-songwriter whose sad little songs pack a helluva wallop. Beam's immediately likable tunes paint such clear pictures that songs like "Southern Anthem" and "Muddy Hymnal" are more akin to short stories by Raymond Carver and Flannery O'Connor than to your average pop ditty. Recorded in his living room on a vintage four-track, The Creek Drank the Cradle co-stars cassette hiss, ambient room sound, and Beam himself. A stripped-down, one-man band, Beam contributes delicious Delta-flavored slide guitar, passable banjo, and deliriously beautiful harmonizing. Beam isn't just a songwriter the equal of Will Oldham and Leonard Cohen (really--and it'll be a surprise if folks don't immediately start covering him), the boy can sing. His melt-in-your-head-but-not-in-your-ears voice is instantly recognizable and will certainly please fans of Nick Drake, Lou Barlow, and Elliott Smith. --Mike McGonigal

Customer Reviews

One of the best albums I've heard in a long time.
I first heard a few cuts of "The Creek Drank the Cradle" via some MP3s a good friend sent me. Having *no* idea who "Iron & Wine" was, I was immediately taken by the lo-fi, harmonious, hushed vocals, and soft, slow, easy pacing. I swore that this had to be some lost recording from the late 1960's from some unknown progressive (for the 60's) folk/blues/country inspired band. It sounded nice, but I didn't end up listening much for a few weeks.

After getting the album and learning it was released late last year (9/2002) inspired me to give the tunes a much closer listen (on headphones, eyes closed, listening closely) early one morning at home. That experience was one of the most moving musical experiences I have had in years. I felt like I had been drained and then refilled. I was literally brought to tears listening to the Sam Beam's sorrowful lyrics of "Promising Light" and "Upward Over the Mountain" (two of the best tracks on the disk IMO). Very moving and softly powerful music & lyrics, indeed.

Since that listening (around two weeks ago), I have had "The Creek Drank the Cradle" in nearly constant play in my CD player (at work, in the car, at home). With each listen the album grows on me more. I was a bit worried I'd get burned out and stop lisetning, but not so far! I also have scoured the web for other unreleased tracks and found a few real gems as well. Word has it many tracks were recorded but only a dozen selected for this album. Hopefully the others will be released soon.

As many reviewers have noted, there is definiely elements of Nick Drake, Elliot Smith, Simon & Garfunkel, Will Oldham, etc. If you are a fan of these artists, indeed you will likely find something to enjoy here. Even after the relatively short time I have had to get to know Sam Beam's work, I feel that this album will end up being thought of in the same vein as Neil Young's "Harvest", Nick Drake's "Pink Moon", etc. It already has a high slot on my "desert island disks" list.

Check it out, but make sure to give it a *good* listen, preferably in a quiet dark room. A rainy day helps set the mood quite well. :-)

a ray of light in a dark dungeon pit
I live in a hellish, soul-less town with no sense of culture or unity and this cd just saved my life.

A Pearl of a Debut!
What a beautiful, beautiful album! It has been quite a while, with the exception of Damien Rice's and Teiturï's debuts, than a first CD offered such creative consistency. Sam Beam, the man behind Iron and Wine, has achieved a work of such unassuming depth that is impossible not to grow impatient for a second recording. Song after song, he manages to convey moods that are at once tender and full of existential pain, without ever indulging on the way too common tendency in young songwriters to put music to their private diaries, nor indulging on the kind of over-instrumentation that not-so-young performers indulge in to make up for the lack of richness in their work. I don't think there's a single weak tune here, actually some of his lesser tunes could be the jewels in CDs by most of his contemporaries. To some he might remind you of Will Oldham, a likely mentor, yet his work has already a feel of its own. This is Americana stripped from cliches, bringing together longing, sweetness and the lingering sense of someone reflecting on life without a "an ax to grind" (this is the difference between poetry and a personal journal). I was tempted to name the great songs but after typing the name of the first four, and realizing that the fifth song will be next, I deleted them. Every song is worthwhile, and adds to the hue of emotions he's so able to articulate. In some ways, it is my opinion, he may remind you of Nick Drake, in his capacity to write of sadness so beautifully that it can almost embrace you, like joy.