True story: one night not too long ago, I went out for a drink wearing an Iron & Wine t-shirt. “Look at you!” said a girl at the bar. “You’re so cool in 2005!”

She was right. Folk was hip in 2005. Sufjan Stevens’s Illinois and the Decemberists’ Picaresque came out that year, and Sam Beam, more commonly known as Iron & Wine, was at the peak of his folksy, lumbersexual powers. Iron & Wine’s latest release, Archive Series Volume No. 1, harkens back to that time, before Beam adopted a bigger band and slicker production, when he was still just a soft-spoken guy with an acoustic guitar.

The first volume of the Archive Series contains 16 tracks recorded circa 2002, songs that didn’t make the final cut onto Iron & Wine’s debut, The Creek Drank the Cradle. Those who prefer that album to 2013’s Ghost on Ghost or 2011’s Kiss Each Other Clean will celebrate. The things that made Iron & Wine so compelling 10 years ago abound here: endearing lo-fi production, delicate guitar, thoughtful melancholy, songs about rivers and songbirds. “Slow Black River,” “Beyond the Fence,” and “Everyone’s Summer of 95” are classic Beam: songs that could stand with the best of the Iron & Wine discography. Still, Archive Series remains a collection of demos and throwaways—it’s nostalgic, intriguing at times, and a tad disappointing.

The Archive Series seems more interesting as a career move than as a group of songs. The Decemberists came back from a “hiatus” in January with What a Beautiful World, What a Terrible World, and Sufjan Stevens has announced that his first album in five years, Carrie & Lowell, will be a return to his “folk roots.” Iron & Wine, currently between labels, has offered up music Beam wrote 13 years ago rather than new material. At a time when his old peers seem to be moving forward by retracing their steps, Sam Beam seems uncertain of where to go next.