This record's closest analogue (at least on this list) is Califone's
Roots and Crowns, but I like this record a great deal less than that one. What Califone did (updating the practically-ancient folk sounds of Harry Smith's anthology) here becomes a case of straight-up nostalgia. While Califone replicated the
experience of listening to such music while simultaneously contemporizing(?) it? Sam Beam seeks to replicate that music
exactly. And for a while it's impressive. "Wow!" you go. "This sounds really old!" And that's pretty much it. This is maybe less disappointing in light of Beam's later, far superior work (The Shepherd's Dog in particular is a great album) but it's still disheartening to hear such acts of musical nostalgia. It's the kind of thing that led people to buy up the
O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack and not go any deeper into the music it represented; it's nothing more than shallow history-aping, as though the years between 1928 and 2002 never happened. Music, I think,
must take into account other music! That's how art develops. Each time I find myself liking a track on this record (and that happens a lot!) I realize I like it because it
sounds like a certain type of music, not because of what it
is. "Sounding like" music recorded 80 years ago does not automatically guarantee comparable artistic quality. You've got to move on. Thankfully, Beam did, and quickly enough revealed his astonishing talents as an arranger on later records, but this one is disappointing.
MY RATING:
5.3
Iron & Wine - "An Angry Blade"
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