Iron & Wine – Around the Well (2009)

Around the Well is Iron & Wine's compilation album of their previously unreleased and out-of-print songs. Since it's a compilation, it's not that amazing as an album, but there are some of the band's greatest songs on this compilation so it's well worth listening to. The album is quite long with its hour and a half length and 23 songs. This was one of the first albums I bought while living in London, so I was listening to it quite a lot at that time and the album does remind me of those times in our tiny student flat near Paddington. I own this album on a double CD, but before purchasing this I already had the first three albums of Iron & Wine on vinyl. Iron & Wine makes beautiful and quiet folk music where the soft vocals sing amazing melodies usually accompanied by only the acoustic guitar.



Iron & Wine is one of those indie folk bands that I started listening to at the latter half of the 00's. Their raw Americana folk appealed to me a lot as their vocals were soft and beautiful like was the case with so many other artists I was listening to at the time. The band was also on Sub Pop and that to me was a guarantee of good quality. I think the first album I owned was their third album The Shepherd's Dog. That was the first album by Iron & Wine that had a bit more complex instrumentation. The first two albums had basically mainly acoustic guitars and banjos and occasional double bass to accompany vocals. Around the Well seems, by this logic, to be chronological, because towards the end the sounds also get more complex. I like both the early and stripped songs and the more complex later songs. However, more recently Iron & Wine has somewhat forgotten their roots as a quiet folk band and their new albums sound more like indie rock. I think this is a bit unfortunate as they sounded much more original with their quiet folk stuff.

As I already said, this album contains some of my all time favourite Iron & Wine songs. Starting from Sacred Vision, which is as quiet as the song can be. The trembling and delicate voice sounds amazing when it's singing this beautiful melody. Waiting' For Superman has some excellent guitar picking and the beautiful melody in the chorus kind of sounds like you could also make a great version of this song as a power pop version. Swans And the Swimming is one of the most beautiful songs that this band has ever made. The vocal melodies are just amazing and bring shivers down my spine. Especially the chorus is out of this world. Being a fan of Postal Service, I also really like Iron & Wine's delicate version of their great song Such Great Heights. God Made the Automobile has beautiful sounds that kind of sound like either a musical saw or strangely mixed backing vocals. To this day I don't know which it is. No Moon shows the more bluesy side of the band that it acquired around their third album. The last song on the album The Trapeze Swinger doesn't sound that special when it starts, but as you go further into this almost ten minute song, you find that it has some amazing feeling hidden in it's verses and melodies.

I am excited to write more about Iron & Wine when it's time to write about the other actual albums that all have their own mood and sound. This album may be a bit here and there when it comes to things like that, but there are some absolute gems among these songs.

Listen to the album on Spotify.