Iron & Wine - Beast Epic

Deluxe 2LP version, red and blue colored vinyl

Features "Call It Dreaming"

Bonus disc has two bonus tracks from album recording sessions, three home-recorded demos and an etching on side D

First new material in more than four years from principal songwriter Sam Beam

"I can whine about it all but I won't." — Samuel E. Beam

2017's Beast Epic, Iron & Wine's fourth album of new material for Sub Pop and its sixth overall, recasts soft power as a series of vignettes, observations and regular old songs that redeem through joy and a certain expectation of grace. Even the instant classic, "Bitter Truth", with a lyric as pained and direct as any heard from Iron & Wine, is leavened with background vocals recalling The Jordanaires.

Sam Beam has called Beast Epic his "most personal" album to date. It is the first Iron & Wine album that he's produced since The Creek Drank The Cradle, though the results are vastly different. This album brims with surprise flourishes, classic touches and an appealing confidence that is evident on songs like "Call It Dreaming." After a decade and a half of prodigious expression and exploration, recording as both Iron & Wine and eponymously, Sam Beam confessed that he has finally figured out how to make records. He's had us fooled all along.

Beast Epic was written and produced by Sam Beam, and recorded and engineered by Tom Schick at the Loft in Chicago in July 2016 and January 2017. The musicians who played on Beast Epic include longtime Iron & Wine collaborators Robert Burger (keys), Joe Adamik (percussion), and Jim Becker (guitar, banjo, violin, mandolin), along with bassist Sebastian Steinberg (Soul Coughing and Fiona Apple), and Chicagoan Teddy Rankin Parker (cello). Beast Epic was mastered by Richard Dodd in Nashville, Tennessee.

 

Side 1

Claim Your Ghost

Thomas County Law

Bitter Truth

Song in Stone

Summer Clouds

Side 2

Call It Dreaming

About a Bruise

Last Night

Right for Sky

The Truest Stars We Know

Our Light Miles

Bonus 12 Inch

Claim Your Ghost

Claim Your Ghost

Claim Your Ghost

Claim Your Ghost

Claim Your Ghost

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