Iron & Wine had always reminded me of long plane flights — red eyes, specifically, when the cabin is hushed and dark, spare a few screens flashing with scenes from rom-coms or Disney movies, and you know that the owner of the seat is most definitely asleep. Perhaps this is because the first time I heard his music — his famous cover of “Such Great Heights,” specifically — was on a plane, or perhaps it was due to how mellow, soothing and folksy I found his music to be.
All this, I say in the past tense. To say that his latest release, Hen’s Teeth, surprised me would be an understatement. Marketed as a sister album to 2024’s Light Verse, I expected the album to be of a similar vein. Light Verse was everything I loved about Iron & Wine, all smooth, playful acoustic and buttery vocals. It was very much airplane music, in a good way. Not overstated in any vein, not unexpected, but mellow without being stagnant and melodically complex without being flamboyant.
If Light Verse was an interesting, upbeat album, Hen’s Teeth is its off-putting Southern twin. Upon playing “Roses,” I was immediately taken aback by how much Samuel Ervin Beam leans into his Southern side. Despite the country twang, it began very much how I would expect an Iron & Wine song to, with soft guitars and a mellow vocal melody. However, as soon as the listener gets comfortable, the key switches into a tense minor, before resolving back into an almost anthemic major chorus. It was more instrumentally dense than I had remembered from Iron & Wine, featuring an impressive and dramatic buildup of strings, percussion and vocals towards the end of the song. “Some only as happy as their life,” Beam repeats, as a sort of haunting mantra.
Beam could not have made a better choice for an album opener, as “Roses” represents the listening experience of Hen’s Teeth: The minute the listener thinks they understand what the album is, it throws another curveball. While the eight track album maintains many of the elements that make Iron & Wine’s music so poignant — raw lyrics about life, love and grief or his signature, layered, finger-picked guitars — it also introduces a side of Beam that is haunting. Hen’s Teeth is not airplane music. The album does not allow the listener to get comfortable. Each track seems to be deliberately building into something. Some tracks, like “Dates and Dead People,” begin on a minor note and only grow in heavy suspense, both in the eerie choral effect of Beam’s layered vocals and also in the haunting lyrics: “There’s nothing but devils in a vanity mirror,” Beam sings, “Pick the one that you know.” Other tracks begin lighter, others sweeter. However, every track, on its own pace, builds into something unexpectedly grand.
“Paper and Stone” is notable in this contrast. While immediately sweet, with romantic lyrics, crooning strings and a gently plucked guitar, the lyrics reveal something deeper — something more obsessive — as it progresses: “But for the love, we’d lose our minds / break a bone to set it right / tap a vein to bleed it dry.” “Defiance, Ohio” begins with a jazzy intro and introduces a syncopated, almost tropical rhythm, adding a bright contrast to the darker themes of the album. However, as the last two verses ring out — “they say don’t get old” — the listener is left with an uncomfortably ambiguous feeling. We are not left with much time to wonder why, as we are thrown into the sparse yet heavy bass intro of “Wait Up,” another sweeter song in collaboration with American band, I’m with Her. Whether it’s the influence of the female band or Iron & Wine experimenting with sound on the album, this song feels almost celestial, with airy vocals and melodic violins.
Beam clearly has fun every song he writes, turning the song itself into a story. Lead single “In Your Ocean,” while melodically simple, is wonderfully twangy and instrumentally complex. Featuring Beam’s Southern charm and vaguely flamenco-esque guitars, it builds up into a pretty acoustic solo. “Robin’s Egg” begins with an upbeat, driving drum beat but turns mellow — almost melancholy, even — when it reaches its pre-chorus. “Singing Saw” and “Grace Notes” are both slightly more stripped down, but in different ways: “Singing Saw” builds on the underlying eeriness of the album, while “Grace Notes” touches on the emotional and personal.
Hen’s Teeth ends on “Half Measures,” a sweeter, slower end to a rollercoaster of an album. To me, a casual listener of Iron & Wine, Hen’s Teeth seems to be somewhat of uncharted, yet very well-done, territory for Sam Beam. As the album winds down, I find myself wishing that there were more to listen to, not ready to conclude the experience that is Hen’s Teeth. So I start it again, from the top.
