Bon Iver
SABLE, fABLE
JAGJAGUWAR
Every Bon Iver album to date has included a comma in its title. It’s a small but important theme, as commas imply a pause between parts of a sequence. SABLE, fABLE, the project’s first album in six years, is a continuation of its darker companion EP SABLE (see the inverse black-and-salmon album cover), but also falls within the lineage of Bon Iver albums that came before it, from i,i and 22, A Million all the way back to Bon Iver, Bon Iver and For Emma, Forever Ago. In this case, Justin Vernon took the comma’s role quite literally by breaking the album into two parts. Following the story of a budding romance that helps heal Vernon’s past relationship wounds, SABLE, fABLE is a slick and polished afterword to the three-song EP released back in October. Those emotional, folk-centric tunes start this album, but its second half is where it truly thrives.
Bon Iver’s music has taken quite a journey since the slowly expanding band’s brilliant folk debut in 2007. Vernon has vacillated between soft-rock and recorded-in-a-cabin acoustic ballads up through the dense noise and electronic layering heard in his latest releases. Vernon and songwriter Jim-E Stack co-produced the new music at Vernon’s woodsy Wisconsin studio, swapping For Emma’s raw sounds out for an electronic-folk feel and R&B sensuality. Vernon mentioned the influence of Bob Seger on these songs in recent interviews, as well as his desire to make music that hits the gut and heart more so than the head this time out.
Lead single “Everything Is Peaceful Love” is probably the closest Vernon gets to achieving this newly amorous vision of a soulful rock and pop song with a real groove. “I don’t know who I am without you,” he sings on “Day One,” another track about romantic entanglement that includes contributions from alt-R&B musician Dijon and Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner (elsewhere on the album, HAIM’s Danielle Haim appears on the melancholic plea “If Only I Could Wait”). “Walk Home” gets slinky and a little silly with its carnal strut and unconventional singing. “There’s a Rythmn” (Vernon’s spelling) and “From” also shimmer with their grooves, but may not connect emotionally on a deeper level for subsequent listens.
The fABLE side of the LP sticks the landing overall, even with some shakiness along the way. But choosing to break open the Bon Iver project and its genre expectations again in this way opens Vernon up to do pretty much whatever he wants for the next album. His “good winter” may be over, and he’s ready to step into the light of springtime.
