Iron & Wine: Light Verse (LOSER edition-clear with blue swirl) LP

When the pandemic began, and the world shut down, so did the process of creating for Iron & Wine's Sam Beam. In its place was a domesticity that the singer hadn't felt in a long time, and although it was filled with many rewards, making music was not one of them. The journey back began with a recording session in Memphis to record a handful of Lori McKenna tracks for the EP "Lori" with friend and producer Matt Ross-Spang. The cathartic experience reconnected Beam with his love for making music, and soon enough the paralysis had passed, and he was finishing lyrics and booking studio time for what would become "Light Verse". Beam lyrically once again takes focus on a series of both fictional and personal insights, filled with desperate characters and wide-eyed optimists, offering promise and a dose of heartache, tears and laughter, life and love. While this may be Iron & Wine's most playful record, Beam says the title mostly reflects the way the songs were born with joy after the heaviness and anxiety of the pandemic. Fashioned as an album that should be taken as a whole, it sounds lovingly handmade and self-assured as a secret handshake.