Iron And Wine – The Shepherd's Dog

I love this pressing! Newbury Comics never misses. I bought mine pre-opened but it sounds excellent and is one of my favorites to spin!

I have a disc which is as above but ends in M1S5.

Agree with other reviewers. Bought this when this came out and recently came back to it. It really does sound phenomenal. Mastered at Sterling and pressed at RTI. Really can’t go wrong.

Yep. Beautifully engineered for vinyl. Gorgeous. Find your way to it.

Agreed. Echoing the sentiments of the previous reviews. Highly recommended!

This is the perfect album for vinyl. A must have!

Best sounding Iron & Wine record by far, this on vinyl is a blast to listen to, Sam Beam incorporates every acoustic instrument he could get his hands on and it all makes for a cacophony of joyous modern indie folk music. His voice sounds righteous on here too, sitting atop the mountain of instrumentation beautifully.

I don't see this noted anywhere, but Side A of my copy is mis-labeled with the Side A label of "Our Endless Numbered Days". Etching still matches The Shepherd's Dog, though. Is this true across the whole run, or is mine just a weird exception?

Anyone compared the audio quality of this pressing to the original vinyl pressing?

"Judas" the punter screamed when Dylan turned on in 1966, and they were as wrong then as anyone who feels the same about Iron & Wine's new release "The Shepherd's Dog". I'm sure like most it was the intimacy of Sam's voice that got me to fall in love with I & W in the first place, and presumed that only an acoustic or extrememly minimally electric backing would allow the focus to remain so intensely on this element. Also the lack of over-production seemed a necessity. Well this release proves both of those assumptions ill-founded.

TSD is both highly polished production-wise AND comes with a fairly complex electronic sonic backing, yet the vocals (most probably due to their remaining so far forward in the mix) remain the focal point, and indeed it becomes evident that the softness of Sam's vox allows this balance to work perfectly.

I found no filler on this album on first listening, and with each subsequent play this only grew stronger. Personally I think the back end of the album is way stronger than the front, with my own faves being "Boy With A Coin", "The Devil Never Sleeps" (the closest to "rocking out" I've heard from this artist), "Peace Beneath The City" (reminiscent of previous releases) and "Wolves (Song Of The Shepherd Dog)".

One of the few artists since Radiohead for whom I religiously hunt down every release, and so far not one disappointment to be had... A great release, highly recommended...