When Iron & Wine auteur Sam Beam released “A History of Lovers” on In the Reins, his sweet 2005 collaborative EP with alt-country shape-shifters Calexico, some were shocked that an alleged freak-folkie could produce what resembled an outtake from Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk. But Beam is a master of melody and harmony as well as mood, and here, with hijacked Calexicans beefing up his sound, he perfects his game, updating trippy ’70s California country-rock from a late-’00s Bible Belt perspective. Woozy steel guitar and dub-y melodica share a pew with country-church hand claps, while Beam’s poetic songs conjure a gothic, hallucinatory Americana where crackheads build arks and strip-club meals make you sick (duh!). The whiff of apocalypse is unmistakable. Yet the scent of wildflowers and lovers’ musk wins out.
Download: “White Tooth Man,” “Carousel,” “Resurrection Fern”