Additional personnel: Natalie Wyants, Salvador Duran (vocals); Craig Schumacher, Nick Luca.

Two indie-rock acts with remarkably devoted followings and a shared innate talent for creating dusty rural atmospheres, Iron & Wine and Calexico are naturally suited for collaboration, and IN THE REINS proves to be exactly what fans of both bands might imagine. Here Iron & Wine singer/songwriter Sam Beam offers up seven original tunes, with the full Calexico band--led by multi-instrumentalist Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino--contributing an appropriately moody and intuitively dynamic backdrop. Like the WOMAN KING EP, this mini-album features Beam--best known for his hushed, minimal sound--working on a much larger scale, with horns, harmonica, organ, and prominent percussion adding to the disc's cinematic scope. The EP's only notable fault (if it can be called that) is its brevity; less than 28 minutes long, IN THE REINS is bound to leave listeners wanting more.