Inferior, almost to the point of enraging me

I finally got around to listening to the Iron & Wine cover of "Such Great Heights", and boy is it a disappointment. The molasses tempo doesn't bother me, but it's sung far too low to be comprehendible. It doesn't help that the lead singer takes huge gasps of air throughout the entire piece. How did they record it, treading water inside a huge aquarium at Sea World?

And call me crazy, but an acoustic version of the song really takes the punch out of a line like "I tried my best to leave this all on your machine but the persistent beating sounded thin upon listening". The beating of what? Top E?