During this period of seething contempt for politicians of every stripe, it's boomtime for songwriters and their metaphorical musings on life, death and everything in-between.

Iron & Wine is the pseudonym of Samuel Beam, a cinematographer-turned-teacher-turned-part-time tunesmith. The songwriting began to take on a life of its own, and via his Subpop albums The Creek Drank the Cradle and Our Endless Numbered Days, Beam finds himself being feted as a distinctive voice in the nu-folk American-rusticana sector. With his full beard and simple white-shirt-and-jeans costume, Beam has the air of a backwoods Baptist. Everything about his music is subdued from the unflashy acoustic accompaniments to the unsettling images that stream through his songs ("God made the automobile to pass all the pretty girls").

He made sure everybody sat up and paid attention by picking Sodom, South Georgia as his opening number - "Papa died Sunday and I understood / All dead white boys say 'God is good'."

His music gathers extra force from the way it conceals its surprises beneath a supernaturally calm surface, assisted by Patrick McKinney's contributions on guitar and banjo, and by Beam's agile vocal harmonies with his sister, Sarah.

Beam has a taste for the illuminating cover version, like a faintly sinister reworking of Neil Young's Mr Soul and an out-of-nowhere version of New Order's Love Vigilantes. "Your freedom we will save with our rifles and grenades / And some help from God." Yup, I think we're getting the picture.

Earlier, Texas's own Micah P Hinson had delivered an opening set in his subterranean baritone, accompanied by some daringly minimal guitar. Hinson is such a mumbler that he might as well have been speaking Finnish, but there's a vague aura of menace about him.