Bon Iver - 'Bon Iver'

Jagjaguwar; 2011

Our Take - 8.6

I wish I could review Bon Iver's new album having never heard For Emma, Forever Ago (2008). It's nearly impossible not to drag all your preconceived notions of what you think Bon Iver should sound like when you give their second album its highly anticipated first listen. But before pressing play on the album I would encourage any listener to suppress the guilty self-indulgent urge that seeks to pinpoint and restrict our heartbroken hero, Justin Vernon, to his ramshackle snow-covered cabin in Wisconsin. The results will be more than fair and deserving for both artist and listener. And since my initial fantasy will forever remain in my dreams, I should probably get on with it and discuss the album itself.

"Perth" begins the album sounding eerily like something that would fit well somewhere within the nine solid tracks of For Emma, potentially extending the iconic isolated feel of that most enchanting album. But within seconds the music takes its most defining turn; a choir of voices leaks to the foreground and a steady drum begins its march to drive the music forward. "So I'm ridding all your stories" Vernon shouts perhaps attempting to destroy the very myth he created in those Wisconsin woods, or at the very least he's starting to move away from it so as to begin again and restructure something entirely new ("you're breaking your ground"). Eventually the music builds to a satisfying climax complete with strings and brass sections only to fall back down, rebuilding itself again from the lowest registers of Vernon's rich baritone voice into something completely remarkable and fresh in "Minnesota, WI."

The lyrics on Bon Iver are, well, lyrical. It's difficult (but not impossible) to extract and piece together coherent narratives or stories throughout the album, which is probably a solid directional move for the band given the powerful hype created by For Emma (let's face it, the album has practically become folklore to a large community of bona fide Bon Iver-believers). A big portion of Vernon's lyrics have an inherent improvisatory feel to them which makes me wonder just how many of these lyrics were ad libbed in the studio. A more free-style approach to lyric writing places a greater emphasis on capturing a single mood or feeling within any given song. It's easy to become lost in the irresistible search for meaning within the dizzying one-liners that sometimes cause us listeners to stumble over ourselves as we try to sing along, but if ever there was a need to look past individual line-by-line interpretation this album deserves it. Simply put, Vernon gives us poetry. Not a poetry of words, but a poetry of sound and with each sound comes a precise mood and feeling, which the words are innately a part of. The effect is haunting if not entrancing as each song carries itself and its own atmosphere along to bring us closer to an understanding of Vernon's colorful imagination and songwriting process. 

There are definite moments that hearken back to the magic of For Emma. From the intimacy of a nostalgic bicycle bell in "Michicant" to the slightly-out-of-tune piano struck almost carelessly at the end of "Wash." the music does not fail in bringing those wistful alluring feelings to full fruition. The third verse of "Holocene" creates that effect as well; the steady guitar riff stops momentarily and an ensemble of horns echoes in the distance, letting Vernon's voice take the spotlight for a moment to recollect a solitary Christmas memory. The chorus of that same song ("...and at once I knew I was not magnificent") depicts Vernon nodding toward his own failure to become something outstanding, yet somewhere behind that daring declaration we hear the acceptance that comes from a genuine realization of one's own human condition and we begin to see the more encouraging outlook developing within these songs.

I suppose I cannot get away from this review without saying a few words about the album's closing track. "Beth/Rest" stands as a borderline anomaly to anyone who simply refuses to listen to any music that could be categorized as "soft rock" (myself included), boldly staring them in the face and rejecting immediate classification. And what are we self-proclaimed music elitists supposed to make of this obvious ploy which echoes 80's synthesizers and slow rock ballads? While that question depends on who you ask and is mainly left up to subjectivity one certainty can be drawn from this enigmatic track. Bon Iver has finally got out of the woods, so to speak. For Emma ended and left most of us in that dreary winter cabin wondering what could possibly come next. Bon Iver ends with a complete and utter anachronism, leaving most of us to wonder why Vernon is suddenly calling upon the musical era we thought we said good-bye to thirty years ago. In that sense "Beth/Rest" can be admired for its placement at the album's close and its willingness to raise questions rather than provide answers.

Perhaps Vernon's motivation for "Beth/Rest" lies in this very review. Skimming over everything written above, not one paragraph escapes the clutches of a comment or two addressing the link between Bon Iver and For Emma, Forever Ago. That sound will most likely haunt Vernon for the rest of his life; however, it does not necessarily have to haunt Bon Iver. It's possible that with the release of this sophomore album fans all over the world will now be craving that third album more ravenously than the second due to the bold leaps taken here to ensure a respectable level of unpredictability within Bon Iver's eclectic sound.