The Shepherd's Dog is almost entirely formulaic, yet never tiring. Quite the contrary - the beauty of the well executed formula is its strong point. Ten of the twelve songs start with a deeply rooted drum loop and over the course of the record, subtle, suggestive samples peek out from the corners of the speakers. As is typical with Iron & Wine, the breathy, perfect harmonies are featured heavily, but the novel backdrop adds an intrigue to Beam's voice where before it was just too quaint.

For all the accumulated popularity Iron & Wine has gained from their delicate Postal Service cover to the acclaim-driven appeal of their slightly underdeveloped past works, let's hope that everyone can look back on The Shepherd's Dog and see it as the glowing beacon of maturity in Sam Beam's career that it honestly is.
--Mike
http://weeklygeekshow.com/2007/07/music_review_iron_wine_the_she.php

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Product Description

Iron and Wine's last release (not including the collaborative In the Reins EP which featured songs by Iron and Wine's Sam Beam and performances by both Iron and Wine and Calexico together) was 2005's Woman King, a 6-song EP which distinguished itself from its predecessors with a deepening integration of spiraling, dense opuses with intimate confessionals. On The Shepherd's Dog this integration is complete. Sam Beam has confessed to finding spiritual inspiration in Tom Waits' pièce de résistance, Swordfishtrombones, an album with which Waits upended his previous strategies and forged a new musical language for himself. Recorded by Sam with the assistance of longtime producer Brian Deck and engineer Colin Studebaker, The Shepherd's Dog succeeds in accomplishing a similar cathartic recasting of the artist's intentions. The arrangements here are kaleidoscopic and rich. "White Tooth Man" rocks with a desperate, menacing intensity while "Boy with a Coin", the album's first single, is darkly playful with a handclap hook tumbling under its cascading melody. The whole album breathes. Its seductive rhythms percolate and undulate, from the Psych-Bhangra-redux of "Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car" to the album's last dance a waltz "Flightless Bird, American Mouth". Compositionally, it is Iron and Wine's most ambitious and accomplished recording to date. It's also the most satisfying.

Track Listing

1. Pagan Angel And A Borrowed Car
2. White Tooth Man
3. Lovesong Of The Buzzard
4. Carousel
5. House By The Sea
6. Innocent Bones
7. Wolves (Song Of The Shepherd's Dog)
8. Resurrection Fern
9. Boy With A Coin
10. Devil Never Sleeps, The
11. Peace Beneath The City
12. Flightless Bird, American Mouth

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3308 in Music
• Brand: Dig
• Released on: 2007-09-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .15 pounds

Amazon.com
Following a one-record hiatus to collaborate with Tucson collective Calexico on 2005's In The Reins, Iron & Wine (Sam Beam, that is) recoils to the earnestness and intimacy that embodied his first two records, his cerebral words and phrases tunneled beneath an orchestra of guitar, banjo, keyboards, and strings. More definitive than ever, the rhythm and percussion complement Beam's voice, a lulling, almost eerie tone that occasionally recalls John Lennon's early solo work, especially on delicate tracks like the bluesy "Wolves (Songs of the Shepherd's Dog" and "Carousel," with its veiled references to Iraq. Those raised on the lo-fi routine of Beam's earlier work will find rawness and sanctity in the more upbeat selections: The CSN folk-rock of "House by the Sea" and "Boy with a Coin" and the atmospheric beauty of "Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car" and Shepherd's best song, "Lovesong of the Buzzard." With an organ swirling about and a slide guitar adding gentle flourishes, Beam concedes that "no one is the savior they would like to be," without realizing that, when it comes to fluent music and pristine storytelling, perhaps he is. --Scott Holter

More from Iron & Wine

Our Endless Numbered Days

The Creek Drank the Cradle

In the Reins, with Calexico

Woman King

The Sea & the Rhythm