Beast Epic

After a couple of collaborative albums—one with singer/songwriter Jessica Hoop, another, all covers, with Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell—Sam Beam returns to Iron & Wine. Pivoting from the experiments of 2013’s Ghost on Ghost, Beast Epic finds Beam in a simpler, more familiar mode: Warm, quietly celebratory folk-rock charged with uplift and hope. “Where we see enough to follow/We can hear when we are hollow/Where we keep the light we’re given/We can lose and call it living,” Beam sings on “Call It Dreaming,” blending the intimacy of Elliott Smith with the bittersweet radiance of Cat Stevens.