For album number three, the Florida to Texas indie-folk star Sam Beam, AKA Iron and Wine, decided to forego the quiet acoustic desperation of 2004’s Our Endless Numbered Days and strike up the band. It’s slightly less satisfying since much of Beam’s appeal has been his soothing, reassuring voice and the luminous melodies he creates with his careful harmonies. They’re still here — and best represented with the acoustic and pedal-steel laced “Resurrection Fern” and “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” — but they're a bit buried beneath arrangements that makes things unusually festive for such a melancholy soul. That’s barroom piano kicking throughout “The Devil Never Sleeps” and strong metal percussion raining down on “Innocent Bones.” “Carousel” uses a vocoder to distort Beam’s voice and “Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car” sounds like Beam sent the band to the junkyard to find their groove. Quiet psychedelic guitar shades “Peace Beneath the City” and “Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)” has an atmospheric groove that borders on ambient. Beam took great chances with this album. His natural strengths are slightly obscured and take a little extra time to make themselves felt.