I wasn’t sure how much I’d like Beast Epic, the new album by Iron & Wine, aka Sam Beam. I knew he’d softened a bit since the early days, gotten less gritty, less dark in general — and hey, I can’t fault him for that. You can only be dark and moody for so long…
“That’s funny,” my wife told me earlier this week, “I didn’t know you were an Afghan Whigs fan.” And at first, I was a little affronted. How could she not know that, after all these years? Except that, as I thought about it, I realized that I’d kind of set aside the Cincinnati band for quite a while…
It’s hard to overvalue the role of Sub Pop in developing my musical tastes. Whether it was Sunny Day Real Estate’s How It Feels to Be Something On or Washed Out’s Within and Without, my musical journey is lined with more than a few Sub Pop…
