Iron and Wine - Ghost On Ghost

Have A Cake And Eat It

This is unashamedly pop perfection, an album at the peak of Mt MOR. Not everyone likes to climb the slippery slopes of such saccharine songs, but if you do, here’s one to assail in the ease of casual Springtime attire with a picnic basket full of candy.

Any studious reader of this blog knows I like both the bourbon and brawl of hard rock as well as the maple syrup of pretty pop sounds [especially West Coast harmony and similar] and there are times with the latter when you worry that the creative ability to produce new sweet melodies may have been exhausted. The bombast and bludgeon of hard rock is easier to blast with fuzz and wah-wah, but the genuine soothing caress of melodic loveliness is harder to achieve with any sense of originality.

Yet enough of the strident premise. Latest Ghost on Ghost from Iron and Wine – aka Sam Beam – is proof in the pretty pudding. My special selections - like picking chocolate chips out of the chocolate fondue - are Joy, Low Light Buddy of Mine, Grass Windows, Sundown (Back in the Briars), Winter Prayers, and Baby Centre Stage. Andrew Gold by way of Freedy Johnston.