The Shepherd's Dog is the third full-length studio album by Iron & Wine, released on September 25, 2007.
Review
Iron & Wine have shown an impressive work ethic since the release of The
Creek Drank the Cradle in 2002. A flood of singles, EPs, and albums, each with
high levels of quality, have made Iron & Wine and Sam Beam stars in the
indie rock world. Introspective, leaning toward morose, and heavily bearded
stars, but glittering just the same. 2007's The Shepherd's Dog goes a long way
toward validating all the attention I&W have been getting; it's their best,
most diverse, and most listenable record yet, as Beam and co. take another leap
away from the lo-fi, one-dude-in-a-bedroom beginnings of the group. Here Beam
surrounds himself with a large cast of musicians, and they blanket the songs
with a wide array of instrumentation, everything from accordions to Hammond
organ, piano to backward guitars, vibraphone to bass harmonica. Nothing too
strange in the everything-goes world of indie rock circa 2007, but for Iron
& Wine, it's a widescreen revelation. Perhaps working with Calexico on
2005's In the Reins inspired Beam to use all the colors in the paint box. Maybe
it's a natural progression. Either way it leads to an inspiringly lush album,
full of imaginative and rich arrangements. Not to say Beam has cast aside the
vital elements that made the band so interesting to begin with; his whispered
vocals still conjure shadowy mystery, the songs are still melancholy as hell at
their core, and as always there's a lingering sense of Southern gothic
foreboding shrouding the proceedings. The increased production values take these
elements and goose them. The recognizably I&W songs like the dark and creepy
“Peace Beneath the City” or the gloomy country ballad “Resurrection
Fern” sound bigger and have a different kind of impact. Take “Boy with a
Coin,” which in the past would have been spare, spooky, and a bit insular, but
now is huge and spooky thanks to the propulsive handclaps and atmospheric
backward guitars that would make Daniel Lanois jealous. Along with these
pumped-up variations on the band's classic sound, there are songs you'd never
imagine hearing on an Iron & Wine album. The danceable (!) “House by the
Sea” has jumpy Afro-pop underpinnings and a bit of wild abandon in
Beam's more passionate-than-usual vocals; “Wolves (Song of the
Shepherd's Dog)” is a funky mix of David Essex's “Rock On,” a
backwoods-sounding Meters, and of all things, dub reggae; and most shockingly,
“The Devil Never Sleeps” actually rocks with a rollicking barroom piano, a
loping tempo, bongos, and lyrics about nothing on the radio, leading to a sound
that's ironically perfect for the radio. By the end of the record, you may feel
a few pangs for the discarded, sparse sound of early Iron & Wine, but the
beauty and majesty of The Shepherd's Dog will pave right over them, and you
should be able to enjoy the masterful songcraft, inspired performance, and
note-perfect production with no guilt and a fair bit of awe. Tim
Sendra – AllMusic