Iron & Wine, "Kingdom of the Animals" (2009)

find it on Around The Well

There's a distinction to Sam Beam's (aka Mr. Iron & Wine) sound that is can start to drone after just a few songs. "What's this?", you think. "More quiet plucked acoustic guitar with whisper-sung vocals?" It's starts to all blend together after a while.

But the funny thing about his stuff is that after it's all blended together, it starts to separate again after a few listenings. The individual melodies harden and the production seasonings start to give each song a distinct flavor.

All a roundabout way of saying that "Kingdom of the Animals" at first faded into the quietly-plucked, whisper-sung wallpaper of the odds-and-ends collection Around The Well, until round about when the iTunes play counter hit four and it was suddenly clear that this song is freaking gorgeous. It seems carefully considered and rambling at the same time, and is a song about discord wrapped in the sound of contentment. Beautiful.