Bon Iver, Bon Iver
Bon Iver
If Bon Iver’s debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago, was defined by the shack in which its songs were crafted, this follow-up is equally tied in sound and vision to the studio that’s so integral to the album’s orchestral, overgrown sound. BI frontman Justin Vernon wisely realized that For Emma‘s powerful emotional release was not a repeatable experiment, instead choosing here to go in the opposite direction. Bon Iver, Bon Iver is an album that’s almost perfect in its craft if not entirely successful in its emotional resonance.
Vernon has described the new record as a “sounds-first” album. This is superficially true just based on the plethora of sounds the album features. There are strings, banjos, horns, clarinets, flutes, steel guitars, drum machines, and seemingly everything else the band could get a hold on. All these elements have been carefully laid together and mixed to create rich, seamless instrumental backdrops. These are so successful that, for the most part, they stand out above the actual songs that they sit behind. As a result the album comes off like a collection of songs that arose out of experimenting in the studio with various instruments and sound-makers, rather than vice versa.
But Bon Iver is still an album of distinct songs, and the problem is that a few of them — “Michicant” and “Hinnom, TX” standout as examples — are too unremarkable to be saved by the intricacy of the instrumentation. “Towers” and “Calgary” are album highlights precisely because they’re affecting and well-written to start with, drawing you into their lush musical landscapes. The album experience as a whole rests somewhere in between these two points. It’s a resounding success as a work of studio mastery – and, all things considered, merits and rewards extensive listening just for that fact. But it’s also not a completely absorbing experience in the way that For Emma is, and that’s a loss.
