Like the proverbial ‘Hen’s Teeth’, the eighth release from Iron & Wine is a rare beast. A record that wasn’t meant to be, it’s a collection of songs that arose as a happy accident from the same productive sessions in Laurel Canyon that birthed 2024’s Grammy-nominated ‘Light Verse’.
The musicians gelled so perfectly they kept working and soon multi-instrumentalist and producer Sam Beam had enough songs for another album. Not that ‘Hen’s Teeth’ is a carbon copy. While it continues to draw on Van Morrison’s ‘Astral Weeks’ and its confluence of jazz and folk, it has darker hues and themes than its airier predecessor.
Like the title, the lyrics are often visceral. Opening tracks Roses and Paper and Stone both explore the shifting nature of relationships, lovers depicted as so deeply entwined they physically merge.
‘Hen’s Teeth’ continues the pattern established since 2017’s ‘Beast Epic’ with Beam stripping back the production, building songs around his silky voice with gentle harmonies and subtle instrumentation. Understated, maybe, but revealing more with every listen.
Acoustic guitar, piano, bass and drums provide the bed for most tracks, with viola, violin, mandolin and nylon guitar adding colour and often a gentle poignancy, while tastefully deployed Mellotron and electric piano provide extra texture.
The resonant sound of a zither features on Singing Saw, a track that finds Beam channelling both old-time, seminal Americana singer Doc Boggs and Simon and Garfunkel. It’s also used on the instantly catchy lead single In Your Ocean, which finds Beam praying for dry ground, while wanting to drown while swimming in the ocean of a relationship.
Other songs have a Tropicalia flavour, drawing on the Brazilian art scene that has produced some of Beam’s favourite music. Endlessly fascinated with possibilities offered by duets, Beam follows his album with Jesca Hoop, and All In Good Time, a duet with Fiona Apple and a standout track on ‘Light Verse’. This time out, he’s joined by Grammy-winning Americana trio I’m With Her who lend their three-part harmonies to the propulsive, breezy Robin’s Egg and the melancholy, but gently tender Wait Up.
‘Hen’s Teeth’ also marks the recording debut of Beam’s daughter Arden who contributes bright, airy harmonies and backing vocals on four tracks, while on Roses their stacked harmonies bring things to a dramatic crescendo.
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