Artist: Bon Iver
Album: For Emma, Forever Ago
Label: Jagjaguwar (US); 4AD (UK)
Tracks: 9
Length: 37:19 mins
Release Date: United States February 19, 2008; United Kingdom May 12, 2008
Rating: 10
Until now, seclusion has never been so creative, hunting never so emotional, music so beautiful.
Following the break up of former band DeYarmond Edison, Justin Vernon aka. Bon Iver retired himself to a secluded cabin in northern Wisconsin, with nothing but deer meat, beer, and a guitar. In between his “chores” and he time he set aside to look back on the day and study his thoughts, Vernon found the time to express himself in the only means possible, so far away in the secluded Wisoncin forest, music. Three months later he emerged with “all of his personal trouble, lack of perspective, heartache, longing, love, loss and guilt that had been stock piled over the course of the past six years, suddenly purged into the form of song”. A debut album, that any singer/songwriter/musician would die for, Vernon really captures emotion in the notes that he plays, and the harmonies that he sings.
The album begins with Flume, a song with a deep, other wordly, ethereal echo throughout, enhanced by the electric effects and the rampant winter weather pounding on the walls of the secluded cabin. It opens with Vernons lightly strummed guitar, reverberating. in the open, empty, space of the room, setting the scene for the album. Lump sum, the second track, while different in its opening maintains the same magical feeling. We are treated to a choir of Justin Vernons emphasized by the cathederal like churchly echo around them. The flow of the record continues on into Skinny Love, track three, where we find Vernon, truly confronting his ancient love, emma “I told you to be balanced/ I told you to be kind/Now all your love is wasted/then who the hell was I”. The Wolves(ActI And II), another emtionally charged track passes with Justin singing “What might have been lost don’t bother me” over a true explosion of the drums, quiet in the background. Justin continues on his emotional journey throughout the record until re:Stacks, where at the end of the track we can hear him put down his instrument and leave the room, having finally cleansed himself of the love and guilt, that had been building up inside him for the past 37 minutes and 19 seconds.
Killian O’Connell
Its my first review on here. Second one i have ever written! Go easy!
