Iron & Wine
Kiss Each Other Clean
4AD
3 stars
Before listening to this album, my only previous encounter with Iron & Wine was via the overly twee ballad ‘Such Great Heights’, courtesy of the Garden State soundtrack. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised by the overall content of Kiss Each Other Clean.
What is initially good about it, is that every song sounds a little bit different from the last. Opener, ‘Walking Far From Home’, has a simple beauty about it, mostly down to Sam Beam’s angelic vocals and the cooing background harmonies. Compare this to ‘Big Burned Hand’ and the album starts to tell another story – one of jazz funk basslines, synths, an electric organ and a saxophone, all melding into a sound that could be described as avant-guard. The wide range of sounds Beam explores is what gives this album its charm.
Kiss Each Other Clean is not, however, without its flaws. For a start, some of it is boring. ‘Tree By The River’, for example, is middle of the road in every respect, as is ‘Glad Man Singing’, and even after several plays, it becomes a struggle to remember what the less stand out tracks actually sounded like. Having said this, it is the pious lyrics that I really take issue with. ‘Tree By The River’ formulaically drones on about lost innocence when we had the “sun on our faces”. As Beam himself says in the lyrics, he was ‘coy’, and this song is certainly that. It’s also rather dull while ‘Godless Brother In Love’ comes across as self-riotous. Consequently, I get nothing of the apparent loss and pain we are supposed to be hearing in Beam’s words.
Musically then, the album is good. I just don’t care much for its lyrics.
Emily Talbot
