When someone mentions the name Sam Beam, two thoughts come to mind: one of the greatest lyricists of my time, and amazing hair (see below).

Sam Beam (a.k.a. Iron and Wine) releases his latest installment to the "full length album" category today with Shepherd's Dog. In conjunction with this debut, Iron and Wine kicked off a fall tour last Sunday (9/23) at Chicago's Metro. A sold out crowd was fortunate enough to hear the album performed for the first time alongside Beam's newly formed band. The rumored "fuller sound" was indeed true as Beam's distinct voice was enveloped by the mystical echoes of more instruments than I could count.

The best-selling author Marcus Buckingham has made a career out of telling people they should work from their strengths - figure out what you are good at and work hard to spend most of your time doing those things.

While I doubt Ben Harper or any of his Innocent Criminal friends have been paging through business books at Borders lately, they are certainly living Buckingham Logic with their latest effort Lifeline. Songs that call you to action, encourage you to live & love, and all around great grooves fill this August release. I only wish it came out earlier for us mid-westerners so we could have listened to it while drinking beer out on our decks on a warm summer night with friends - this is the chill mood the sounds quickly create.

With much admission, there is significant irony in what will follow. There are few artists in whom I own every album in production and David Bazan is one of them. Bazan finally shed the "Pedro the Lion" persona (and what was left of it as a band) with his latest and appropriately named album Fewer Moving Parts.

Having recently embarked on a fall solo tour, I was fortunate enough to catch a live performance this weekend at Chicago's Beat Kitchen . Bazan, known for his ironic and honest storytelling, plowed through more songs in a given time span than anyone I have seen of late. Midst a mixture of tracks from his latest solo release and various Pedro songs, Bazan provided background to a few lyrics in addition to opening himself up to questions from the audience-an aspect of the performance that has become somewhat of a staple for Bazan shows.

It's been almost a year since the Album Leaf released their last album "Into the Blue," but that doesn't mean that we'll be seeing a new disc anytime soon. The Album Leaf isn't a normal indie-rock-pop band, there's something more to this band... and also something less.

Electronic beats bumping up against a xylophone, bumping up against distorted harmonies, bumping up against classically played strings is to be expected from The Album Leaf... lyrics are not however. On "Into the Blue" only about half of the songs have distinguishable lyrics, but for some reason this album isn't what I would expect from an album that is carried so much by instrumentals. It's not that the lyrics are not important or beautiful or artistic, it is just that if the lyrics were removed altogether there would still be a wealth of artistic beauty and talent left.