The Bon Iiver saw the light: the review of 'Sable, Fable'

For almost twenty years Justin Vernon Aka Bon Iiver has been a pillar of indie. Debut For Emma, ​​Forever Augthe isolationist recorder written in a hut in the Wisconsin woods, Vernon has changed style several times. It happened for example in 22, to Million of 2017, which was yes a folktronic album and musically far from what was expected from Vernon, but still the portrait of a man in crisis. In the texts of Vernon there have always been a note of restlessness and the tendency to introspection that has sometimes confined it to the role of the melancholy singer -songwriter and an broken heart.

In autumn, after five years without records on behalf of Bon Iver, Vernon published a triptych of songs. The EP Sablea word that indicates the dark pesto, seemed a sort of final balance. “Nothing went as I believed,” sings in his characteristic falsetto in Speysidewords that sound more like a long -awaited liberation than as the recognition of a defeat. In the sober dossology of Awards SeasonVernon turns his gaze towards a brighter path: “And do you know what is wonderful? What nothing remains”.

If in Sable There is a Vernon during the atonement, in the nine songs added to the EP to get to compose the new album Sable, Fable (that the musician writes how Sable, Fable) They finally see it to give in to lightness. Short story It is perhaps the piece that most recalls the bon Iver of the latest albums. It lasts just under two minutes, it is built by stratifying a cacophony of synths, winds and vocoders, as if Vernon was thanking the instruments behind which he hid, and then freed them one last time. “Time heals and then repeats itself,” sings, accepting the regenerative nature of things. “You haven't gone too deep yet.”

Short story he blends harmoniously in Everything is Peaceful Lovethe single key of Fable. The vocal harmonies hover on an almost metronomic time, as if Vernon was determined to maintain a constant rhythm while thinking about a new relationship. Only a few times he abandon himself to the awareness of the possibility of suffering for love. “How do I know if one day will you change the way?”, “Will it last for a long, long time?”.

There is a sense of transcendence in Fablewith most songs in greater shades supported by pressing percussion and a lot of triumphal pedal steel and pop melodies. Inclined to collaborations, Piazza Dijon and Flock of Dimes in the Allegra Day oneDanielle Haim in I'm be there and for a meditabondo duet in If Only I Couuld Waitwhile the voices of Kacy Hill and Jacob Collier alternate throughout the album produced by Jim-E Stack.

One of the first times in which Vernon spoke of the album was in February. During the live podcast On being by Krista Tippett described Fable Like a “controlled combustion”, which expresses the “drama and the odyssey of abandoning itself to love and Amare”. But the disc tells much more than a simple love story: it represents a man who lets go totally to hope, with the palms of the hands facing upwards, ready and eager to catch his breath.

In Things Behind Things Behind Thingsthe first song by SableVernon says that “I would like that feeling to disappear”. In There's in Rhythmnlast piece of Fable Before an instrumental thing, he asks a fundamental question: “Can I feel in another way?”. After this journey, his voice is lower and more decisive. “Can I really complain about being still here?”. With Sable, Fablethat the JagjaguWar label called the “epilogue” of the Bon Iver, Vernon is ready to break the cycle of sadness and pain, to walk towards light.

From Rolling Stone Us.