IRON & WINE - Beast Epic

Beast Epic is the sixth full-length studio album by Iron & Wine, released August 25, 2017 via both Black Cricket Recording Company and Sub Pop.

The album was announced on June 8, 2017, with a statement regarding the album's themes being provided along with tracklisting details. Sam Beam mentioned how time and aging were the main inspirations behind the album, stating "I have been and always will be fascinated by the way time asserts itself on our bodies and our hearts. The ferris wheel keeps spinning and we’re constantly approaching, leaving or returning to something totally unexpected or startlingly familiar. The rite of passage is an image I’ve returned to often because I feel we’re all constantly in some stage of transition. Beast Epic is saturated with this idea but in a different way simply because each time I return to the theme, I’ve collected new experiences to draw from. Where the older songs painted a picture of youth moving wide-eyed into adulthood’s violent pleasures and disappointments, this collection speaks to the beauty and pain of growing up after you’ve already grown up. For me, that experience has been more generous in its gifts and darker in its tragedies."