Age has a way of mellowing a person, sanding away their rough edges, leaving only their essence. Look at Sam Beam, the singer-songwriter who has performed under the name Iron & Wine since the release of The Creek Drank the Cradle in 2002. His earliest records were stark, spare and sad, seemingly solo even when augmented by another voice, string player, or percussionist. As the years piled up, Beam developed an appreciation for collaborators, recording full albums with Ben Bridwell, Jesca Hoop, and Calexico, setting him on the path that takes him to the unabashed glow of the new Hen’s Teeth.
Hen’s Teeth is in every respect a companion album to Light Verse, the 2024 album where Beam returned to active duty after an extended hiatus. The two albums were recorded concurrently in Laurel Canyon with a band featuring guitarist David Garza, bassist Sebastian Steinberg, and keyboardist Tyler Chester, along with a revolving suite of drummers. An addition to the Hen’s Teeth lineup is I’m With Her, the Grammy-winning folk group whose intertwined vocals grace “Robin’s Egg” and “Wait Up,” a pair of songs that exist on opposite ends of the spectrum. “Robin’s Egg” is loosey-goosey, lightened by the trio’s charm, but it’s the hushed, lovely “Wait Up” that provides the key that unlocks the rest of the album. There, I’m With Her lifts Beam’s melancholy melody out of the doldrums, turning it into a soothing balm.
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A similar trick happens elsewhere on Hen’s Teeth, when Beam’s daughter Arden sings harmony, lending depth to the plaintive “Grace Notes” and providing a compassionate counterpart during the intricate turns of “Singing Saw.” The latter song also provides ample evidence of how the warmth at the heart of Hen’s Teeth doesn’t necessarily derive from the presence of human voices. Beam’s musical collective, anchored by Garza and Steinberg, a pair of veterans who both played on Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters, is empathetic and intuitive, deftly following him through the cascading tides of “Dates and Dead People” and bringing a lazy Sunday afternoon vibe to the rambling opener “Roses.”
The mellow assurance of Beam’s team of professionals suggests the heyday of Laurel Canyon without quite conjuring any hippie ghosts. His touch remains too subtle and tasteful to succumb to the temptations of revivalism, yet there’s a distinctly welcoming and wistful breeze wafting through the record, blowing the stark “Paper and Stone” right into the sunlight. It’s a trick he repeats over and over throughout Hen’s Teeth, letting the idiosyncrasies of his songs be transformed, even erased, by the interplay of his supporting musicians. Maybe he’s lost the spartan immediacy of his earliest records, but he’s gained a sense of camaraderie that makes his music feel nourishing.
