Iron & Wine | Kiss Each Other Clean

Most Likely To: cause flashbacks.

Finally–an Iron and Wine album your parents will like!

Okay, Samuel Beam’s music clearly doesn’t fall into the confines of rabble-rouser rock; there is no perversity that one can equate with the singer/songwriter. But Kiss Each Other Clean is definitely an ode to yesteryear and would probably make the older generation who approved of 1970s folk rock swoon. The album is truly retro with a Simon and Garfunkel feel that is prevalent throughout along with a lot of lyrics about dreams, reminiscence, and of course, the hopeless romantic’s favorite–love. Some songs such as, “Your Fake Name is Good For Me,” are sprinkled with mind-bending metaphors. (How else is “We will become an ice cream cone” supposed to be explained?)

Musically, the album isn’t just Iron and Wine augmented with a guitar or piano. The arrangements vary with each song, from simple, delicate acoustic melodies to more robust songs with jazzy drums, clarinet, and backing vocals. “Godless Brother in Love” is a simple piano ballad with vocal harmonies fit for a hippie lover’s serenade. Midway through Kiss Each Other Clean, around the time we meet up with “Big Burned Hand,” the songs become heavy with horns and “white man jazz.” There are also didgeridoos, assorted wind instruments, and bongos to balance out the edge of electric guitar and light use of off-color language found on “Rabbit Will Run.” Each song is true to Beam’s style but is a bit different from the one that preceded it, making for an enjoyable and ever-changing listening experience while never seeming contrived.

Kiss Each Other Clean is a beautifully composed and soothing collection of songs which embrace lots of different elements that we haven’t previously heard from Iron and Wine. It also serves as Iron and Wine’s major label debut with the Warner Brothers family; let’s hope he doesn’t shave his rockin’ beard now.

As a major label release, it fittingly has some potential “hits” included for good measure but luckily they are the kind of catchy songs that you won’t mind hearing on the radio… especially if you’re driving down a windy, country road and have a hankering for a modern day Americana record that’s easy like Sunday morning.

Watch Iron & Wine perform “Half Moon” on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon: