Iron & Wine Our Endless Numbered Days Sub Pop, 2004 amazon

Listening to Death Cab's Ben Gibbard take an electronic turn in the Postal Service, i was intrigued to hear an acoustic version of their debut single Such Great Heights as a b-side. Dubbed the "Iron & Wine Remix", i had little suspicion that the brilliant retake was not a remix but a complete rerecording by Floridian troubadour Sam Beam. Months later i was informed of my misjudgement when i was encouraged to check out Beam's second album, 2004's Our Endless Numbered Days. It's unbelievable what Beam is able to achieve with little more than an acoustic guitar. From blues joints ("Teeth in the Grass", "Free Until They Cut Me Down") to somber, heartwrenching ballads ("Naked As We Came", "Love and Some Verses") that establish Beam as the Nick Drake of the new millenium, Iron & Wine is able to captivate with a single pluck of a six string. Songs like "Fever Dream" take a meandering twangy riff and Beam's near-whispered vocals and make you feel like the rest of the world just washed away on a rolling wave. I find myself coming back to one song over and over again. Late in the album, "Sodom, South Georgia" relates the passing of one's father with such devastating clarity and honesty that i find it difficult not to tear up when i hear "Papa died Sunday, and i understood, all dead white boys say 'God is good'". I can't imagine Iron & Wine ever making the kind of mainstream waves that more marketable songwriters like Jack Johnson and David Gray enjoy, despite repeated championing by the indie powers of the day and use of his version of "Such Great Heights" in a recent M&Ms commercial. But of anyone around today, he is the closest to the next Bob Dylan. As if that should matter.

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