Iron & Wine’s Hen’s Teeth is decidedly darker than its sibling album, admitting emotional ambiguity at every turn. Sam Beam knows that a lot can happen in the span of a single song, and here he leans ever further into the South’s musical traditions, surrounding himself with collaborators who double the vulnerability at the heart of his most open-hearted work in years.
Given that Iron and Wine – the stage name of Carolina songwriter Sam Beam – was there at the beginning of the freak folk boom of the early noughties, it might come as a surprise to learn that he is only on his eighth studio album. The almost unanimous critical acclaim that has met the previous seven makes you think he’s not the sort of musician who benefits from rushing into things. Those earlier albums have a remarkable consistency of tone. There have been curveballs – 2011’s Kiss Each Other Clean saw a lurch towards electronic pop music that was only a surprise if you hadn’t heard the covers of Stereolab and the Postal Service that Beam released a couple of years previously – but by and large he has maintained a hushed, literate country-folk persona, albeit one that has moved slowly away from the weirder, more lo-fi elements of his first two Sub Pop albums, The Creek Drank the Cradle (2002) and Our Endless Numbered Days (2004).
Beam’s work is rooted in the American South, more so than many of his freak folk peers, and Hen’s Teeth sees him leaning ever further into the South’s musical traditions. To this end, he is aided on a couple of songs by folk/roots/bluegrass trio I’m With Her (whom we interviewed way back in 2018), who add an array of violins, banjos and guitars to Beam’s own acoustic guitar. If this seems like a natural progression from his previous album, 2024’s Light Verse, it’s actually more than that. Songs for both albums were recorded at the same time and with the same band. But Hen’s Teeth is no offcuts album, no forgotten sibling. The two act as different sides of the same coin: Light Verse, as its name suggests, was full of space and playfulness. Hen’s Teeth is decidedly darker, with a more prominent seam of melancholy. The most notable exception is Robin’s Egg, one of the I’m With Her collaborations, which feels like it could have been written for (or by) the Roches. It’s a bounding, bright slice of 1970s-inspired Laurel Canyon prog-country, bursting with the lushest of vocal harmonies.
That 70s vibe remains, but in a toned-down, after-the-party kind of way. It’s not a maudlin one, but it does admit emotional ambiguity. In Your Ocean is a blustery strum with an undertone of stark loneliness. Roses, which opens the album, is elegiac from its outset, but builds into a purposefully confusing crescendo. There are Stephen Stills-like flourishes of guitar (which go well with the Graham Nash-esque bits sprinkled through the album) and disconcerting crashes of piano. It’s as if Beam wants to make us aware early on that Hen’s Teeth is Light Verse’s chaotic twin.
Paper and Stone is defined by its light musical and vocal brushwork: a fiddle weaves in and out, the guitar work is intricate, and Beam’s voice is soft, almost a croon. But the lyrics reveal a hidden darkness, a conflict of romantic interests that crops up all over the album. Defiance, Ohio, begins with an offhand whistle and a gentle, tropicalia-inspired shuffle, but again the lyrics tell a slightly different, more ambivalent story. Wait Up, the other I’m With Her collaboration, has the most outwardly melodramatic aspect, with the emotional push and pull of its shared vocals, the weep of a violin and the swell and release of its dynamics. It’s not unrecognisable from those lo-fi days, but it’s certainly a step and a half away.
Beam knows that a lot can happen in the span of a single song. The impressive Dates and Dead People is a kind of mini-suite that goes through several iterations in its six minutes. It starts like a lost sixties psych-folk gem and ends up – after a period of clatter and crescendo – as a kind of cultish ritual dance complete with handclaps. The bluesy Singing Saw, with its satisfying percussive clop and Beam’s occasional foray into impassioned falsetto, starts out like Solid Air-era John Martyn then morphs into folkier territory. Part of this mid-song evolution is due to the backing vocals, performed here by Beam’s daughter Arden, who plays a prominent part on the record. Her contribution to Grace Notes turns a gentle folk song reminiscent of Beam’s earlier work into something liquid, shifting: the second voice seems to double the vulnerability at the song’s heart.
And even at this mature stage of his career, Beam is unafraid to air his vulnerable, fragile side. Half Measures, the beautiful, slowly-strummed closer, is as open-hearted as anything you’re likely to hear, almost like Neil Young at his stripped-back best, or, if you squint a bit, a rawer Paul Simon. And it is those kinds of songwriters Sam Beam deserves to be mentioned with. He has been very good for a very long time, and Hen’s Teeth keeps that impressive streak going.
Hen’s Teeth (February 27th, 2026) Sub Pop Records
Order: https://music.subpop.com/ironandwine_hensteeth