Iron & Wine: Hen's Teeth (LOSER edition-coloured vinyl) LP

Indie-folk icon Sam Beam, aka Iron & Wine, presents a new studio album filled with gorgeous, naturalistic Americana. "I've always wanted to use that title", Beam says of "Hen's Teeth", his eighth full-length album and his sixth for Sub Pop Records. "I just love it. To me it suggests the impossible. Hen's teeth do not exist. And that's what this record felt like: a gift that shouldn't be there but it is". "Hen's Teeth" and his previous album, "Light Verse", are siblings of a sort. They were recorded during the same sessions after a year-long dry spell, with the same band, at Waystation studio in Laurel Canyon. The world of "Hen's Teeth" is earthier, darker, more robust, and more tactile than that of "Light Verse". The indie-country trio I'm With Her appears on the ebullient lead single, "Robin's Egg", and again on the tender, mournful "Wait Up". Beam's daughter Arden - born two months before the release of Beam's debut album, 2002's "The Creek Drank The Cradle" - contributes harmonies and backing vocals on three tracks.