- Our Endless Numbered Days is the oxymoron-titled sophomore album by revered artist, Iron & Wine (AKA Sam Beam) released in 2004. In the fifteen years since this memorable record, Beam has gone on to have sterling career with a plethora of great albums, although Our Endless Numbered Days can rightly be seen as the quintessential Iron & Wine album. Full of finger-picked acoustic guitars, banjos, double bass, and slide guitar, it presents the style for which Beam is most known. Irrespective of the timbre, Our Endless Numbered Days is a composite of an unequivocally stellar batch of songs. From start to finish there isn’t a weak number to be had and as brilliant albums do, this one has aged handsomely. It is little wonder that Sub Pop decided to do a reissue.
The reissue comes with bonus demo tracks which are reminiscent of Iron & Wine’s lo-fi debut, The Creek Drank The Cradle. That increase in fidelity is actually greatest difference between that album and this one. While Our Endless Numbered Days lacks the quaintness of its predecessor, there is no shortag of intimacy emanating from the album. Lyrically, there are recurring themes of love and death embedded throughout the tracks with lines such as, “One of us will die inside these arms / Eyes wide open, naked as we came / One will spread our ashes around the yard” from second track, Naked as We Came. As well as tender songs such as this one, the album is not without country-jam songs like Teeth In The Grass and Free Until They Cut Me Down that build around steady beats and twangy banjos. These moments showcase the band that Beam uses for the first time. Whereas Beam’s earlier recordings consisted wholly of instruments he had played himself, the songs on this album benefit from the diversity of input from other players.
Despite the advantages of that adroit band, Beam’s great talent lies in his ability to write and perform songs that are emotionally powerful with just an acoustic guitar, as is apparent on the reissue’s demo tracks. This is further evidenced by Fever Dream and the ephemeral Radio War which is a mini-masterpiece in under two minutes. Iron & Wine are renowned for these affecting songs and there is perhaps none more so than album closer, Passing Afternoon. It’s a song with a verse dedicated to each of the four seasons and one could surely go on for a year trying to describe its beauty (I’m certainly finding it difficult now), but if I had to try and do it justice it in just a couple of words, I would say that l-ike the entirety of the album- it’s simply devastating.
- Jonathan Cloumassis.