Vacuvin Wine Server Black

April 5, 2008 | By Doug In Wine |

Iron & Wine is Sam Beam, a back-porch Florida singer-songwriter whose sad little songs pack a helluva wallop. Recorded in his living room on a vintage four-track, The Creek Drank the Cradle co-stars cassette hiss, ambient room sound and Beam himself. Beam’s immediately likable tunes paint such clear pictures that songs like “Southern Anthem” and “Muddy Hymnal” are more akin to short stories by Raymond Carver and Flannery O’Connor than to your average pop ditty. A stripped-down one-man band, Beam contributes delicious Delta-flavoured slide guitar, passable banjo and deliriously beautiful harmonising. Beam isn’t just a songwriter the equal of Will Oldham and Leonard Cohen (really–and it’ll be a surprise if people don’t immediately start covering him): the boy can sing. His melt-in-your-head-but-not-in-your-ears voice is instantly recognisable and will certainly please fans of Nick Drake, Lou Barlow and Elliott Smith. –Mike McGonigal
List Price: ?7.99
Used Price: ?6.16
Customer Review: The Creek Drank The Cradle
‘The Creek Drank The Cradle’ is the sweet, melodic album written, performed, produced and recorded at home by Sam Beam. One reviewer here gave this CD a low star rating (which is entirely his prerogative) because of the poor recording quality, but I tend to feel that this element actually adds to the album. The raw, stripped back nature of the recording compliments the songs perfectly. The feel of one man and his guitar, sat in his living room, is completely captivating. The songs are spare and yet hold you spellbound throughout. A simple, beautiful album that is great to sit back to and let your cares slip away. Highly recommended. If you like this, check out ‘The Pull’ by Kreg Viesselman, another beautiful album of a similar ilk.
Customer Review: Nice songs, shame about the recording
I bought this on the back of having heard (and really liked) some Iron and Wine songs in films, etc. Had this album been my first exposure, I would have been put off for good. It was apparently recorded in a “home studio” and the sound quality is little short of appalling. Noisy, with poor EQ and mixing, it sounds as though it was recorded straight to cassette tape in some one’s bedroom, using cheap instruments that have never seen new strings. The voice is too far back in the mix and the sotto voce singing style begins to grate after about 30 seconds. It is a testament to the song-writing that I will probably seek out more recent, studio-quality recordings. However, this is one to miss unless you are a die-hard fan or want a complete collection of Iron and Wine.
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