Samuel Beam, the man whose music is quietly, hauntingly performed under the banner of Iron and Wine, can be found on the musical map at the unlikely crossroads of 16 Horsepower Alley and the Simon and Garfunkel Highway, just a few blocks away from his kindred spirit, Sufjan Stevens. His songs have the gentle harmonies and rain-soft guitars of "The Sound of Silence," and his lyrics contain traces of Scripture and rumors of wickedness.

His latest is no exception to this rule. Our Endless Numbered Days, the follow-up to Iron and Wine's The Creek Drank the Cradle, explores signs of ancient history and crimes long buried, discovered like teeth in the grass. He explores the fleeting wonder of life that disappears in “cinder and smoke,” the shame of how we foolishly let it slip away, the treasure of simple love between two human beings, and the everpresent and relentless gift of divine grace. Where Sufjan Stevens has shown a keen awareness of darkness and a compulsion to capture heaven's glories in song, Beam's approach is to acknowledge the possibility of the divine but keep his nose to the ground, searching out the scent of scandal and story, as if collecting ghost stories for an upcoming fireside session.

It's not hard to believe that these songs were written in wartime. Death is everpresent, intermingling with the vivid sensuality of life. “There will be food in our mouths," he observes, just as "there will be teeth in the grass.” What we employ for life will become evidence of our own passing. Death and life intermingle in images of ravens in the corn. The chilling cruelty of war appears, manifested as “a beast never seen.” And towns full of religious conviction are slated for judgment, as in "Sodom, Georgia," despite their display of "Christmas bows."

There are fragments of compelling narratives here as well. “Each Coming Night” hints at a tale of lovers saying goodbye after a “judgment day” after the singer’s actions have resulted in the death of the beloved’s father. In "Free Until They Cut Me Down," a condemned man eagerly anticipates the freedom he will feel between the present and his approaching execution, when he is set free of his own history.

Irony's knife twists in the way that the singer can pray for rain and then quickly shift into references of burning up the gifts that arrived in a rainy season.

Bean delivers skillful, steady guitar picking and hushed, reverent singing, sometimes accentuated by the voice of his sister Sara. It's as if he's trying not to raise his voice, so as to maintain a delicate balance. We come to appreciate the measured and transitory happiness of "numbered days," come to a reverence and greater joy in the deeper currents of eternity.

The sound of Iron and Wine is the equivalent of the color of grey skies misting over the conflagration of fallen autumn leaves. The best way to enjoy this album is with a friend, in the comfort of home, with a fire in the fireplace, on a day that conspires to keep you indoors.