Review: Bon Iver, "Bon Iver"

Bon Iver
Bon Iver
Jagjaguwar
06.21.11


It's no surprise Bon Iver, a/k/a Justin Vernon, became the indie darling of choice almost immediately upon release of his 2008 debut, For Emma, Forever Ago. The backstory was more irresistible, after all, than any American Idol fabrication -- lost his band,. lost his girl, got sick, holed up in a cabin and fed his pain directly into analog. Musically, he was the American version of Nick Drake, a gloomy Lindsey Buckingham, a Brian Wilson who'd moved straight from awkwardness to isolation with no beach babies in between.

So it makes more sense that he would, in his words, "forget how to write songs" once he became an overnight DIY star. Confounding expectations by autotuning himself on "Woods," from his stopgap EP Blood Bank, merely led to Kanye West sampling him and making him more famous than ever. Vernon's a master of screwing up in reverse, in other words, and he proves it right in the title of his long-awaited sophomore album, Bon Iver, as if he were either looking to reclaim his identity or cast an ironic smirk at his popularity. (He should have gone all the way and simply named it Slippery When Wet.)

This time around, Vernon wisely lets a little air into his methodology. Written and recorded with his touring band, it functions as a series of posts from a emotional roadtrip he badly needed to make, right down to the nearly uniform placename titles. If the first album was therapy, and the EP wistful sketches from a happier, earlier time, Bon Iver is a portrait of a man facing the world again.

You can feel this from the first note, and not just because the sound's better. "Perth" is painted with a larger sonic palette than usual (drums! keyboards!), but it augments the drama in his trademarked, ghostly overdubbed vocals without interfering with them. ("Now breaking new ground," indeed.) And it gets stranger. There's a by-god saxophone solo dueling with farting synths on "Minnesota, WI," and "Towers" suddenly breaks into a countryish gallop halfway through. "Calgary" almost, um, rocks, and the closer, "Beth/Rest," defiantly employs the cheesiest keys since Bush's dad left office. The most compelling track, "Wash.", is mostly laid out on two competing, fidgety piano chords. 

Which may make a case for minimalism after all. Nothing here is as striking as the duel with technology he performed on "Woods": this all-important second release exists as no more or less than proof that Bon can still be Bon with outside input and a big(ger) budget. And the lyrics are no help, despite being sunnier than usual -- overripe lines like "I’m growing like the quickening hues" and "What a mischief you would bring young darling!" can mean whatever you want them to, once you settle into the album's mood. If "coming out party" isn't exactly the right phrase for a navel-gazer like Justin, Bon Iver certainly feels like an emotional release of sorts. But it's a cautious one, especially for someone who spent the last year or so working with Kanye, Nicki Minaj, and Rick Ross. The only lingering wintry mood from the debut wafts in courtesy of the obvious question: where can he possibly go from here?   

Graded using the Third Eye Method:

Impact: 66. The sound's more expansive (and expensive) than the debut, but that doesn't make it more beautiful.
Invention: 81. Carrying his unique signature sound into a recording studio is an interesting enough gambit. For now.
Integrity: 82. Like Randy Newman before him, we may look back one day to find that Justin Vernon works best when you simply put an instrument in front of him and roll tape.