"In the Reins" Iron & Wine and Calexico Overcoat Records
Collaborations are usually hit or miss in the music industry and
the result of Iron & Wine and Calexico’s team-up in 2005,
“In the Reins,” is definitely a miss. Whether it was
the inability to compromise or the disparity between Sam
Beam’s Florida and Calexico’s eclectic mesh of sound,
there is definitely dissonance in “Reins.” Beam wrote
most of the EP, and the backbone of “Reins” retains all
the expected Iron & Wine sound: soft, pillow-talk tracks for
enchanted lovers and the Southern hymns and dirges for the loss of
loved ones. Along with his scarf-making wife, Beam harmonizes a
multitude of layers on top of his own vocals, uses a signature
blend of riffs, and keeps the trusty banjo on his side. But while
they may have been an attempt to expand the range of sounds in the
music, Calexico’s pedal steels and trumpet become a
distraction as Beam’s voice disappears in a clutter of noise
from too many different genres. A lot of “Reins” sounds
like a mini-jam session wherein Beam starts out with his breathy,
endearing voice and Calexico struggles to plug in its own two
cents, creating too much noise in the background. The trash-can
bangs in “Prison Route 41,” while appropriate for the
ball-and-chain prison imagery, segue into “History of
Lovers,” overshadowing the track and canceling out the
touching feel of the composition. It’s difficult to imagine
the material on this album being pulled off at the Wiltern next
month, when the two bands will play together. Either Calexico must
tone down or Beam must shed the bird’s nest on his chin to
rock out convincingly. While Beam had retained the same sound for
the span of his entire discography, the release of the racier,
rhythm-driven “Woman King” EP earlier this year
foreshadowed such a daring collaboration. He has also proven
himself a master cover-artist with his rendition of the Postal
Service’s “Such Great Heights” (his contribution
to the “Garden State” soundtrack) and the reworking of
a Six Parts Seven track, taking the songs and turning them into
signature Sam Beam. But this EP is the biggest divergence in his
career, and the invitation to Calexico has cramped his style by
turning his simplistic ditties into drawn-out interludes.
“Burn that Broken Bed,” for instance, trails on a
minute too long with an interlude courtesy of Calexico’s
trumpeter. There is some redemption in “Reins,”
however. The last three songs on the album get progressively better
(being less influenced by Calexico), building up to the best, and
fortunately last, track of the album. “Dead Man’s
Will” is a touching choral track that makes you want to go
back to the beginning and give the album a second chance, even if
you need to skip some tracks. The closer is undoubtedly
Beam’s best goodbye song, featuring careful vibraphone and
keyboard input by Calexico that highlights Beam’s music in a
way that can’t be heard on any solo Iron & Wine record.
In the end, it’s a must-have for any Iron & Wine or
Calexico fan, but it’s a drag to get through.
““ Taleen Kalenderian