Bon Iver Was Never Just Sad
On the project’s bifurcated fifth album, ‘Sable, Fable,’ Justin Vernon undercuts his music’s emotional complexity.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been this happy, which is really awesome,” Justin Vernon said. “If I was bumming out and making some breakup record now, how boring would that be?” It sounds like something the Bon Iver leader may have uttered during his recent interviews for Sable, Fable, which is being billed as a blissful mental and musical about-face after a career of sad-sack songs. But the quote is from 15 years ago. Back then, he was working on the follow-up to his mythically lonely—and hugely successful—breakthrough album when he wasn’t rolling spliffs with Rick Ross while taking part in recording sessions for Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. He had a lot of reasons to feel good and, apparently, he did.
Bon Iver’s subsequent self-titled album was anything but boring or just sad. It expanded the project’s sound in unpredictable ways, incorporating skewed post-rock arrangements and a sense of churchly communion. The same could be said of 22, A Million and I,I, records that further complicated the man-in-the-woods cultural shorthand that had built up around Vernon. For those who only heard Bon Iver’s music from lazy placements of “Holocene” or “Skinny Love” in movies and TV shows looking to milk some cheap sentimentality out of a scene, Vernon could seem like the ultimate wounded angel, doomed to fall forever. But those who seriously sat with his work have long known its many dimensions—including its serenity, its anger, and yes, its joy. Consider the rush of “Blood Bank,” which has evolved into a show-stopping moment of catharsis on stage. Or the slippery peace found in “22 (Over Soon),” its chirpy vocal samples and smooth saxophone underlining its temporary pleasures. Or “U (Man Like),” an examination of toxic masculinity amid the MeToo era in the form of a stately piano reverie. That kind complexity is what made Bon Iver’s music so compelling for so long.
In presentation and, often, in form, Sable, Fable undoes that richness, boiling it down to a relatively straightforward black-and-white (or, I guess, black-and-salmon) palette. Originally released as a three-song EP late last year, Sable is the glum, dude-with-a-guitar prelude; Fable is its brighter counterpart, where Vernon ditches his surreal lyrics and swerving song structures for odes to infatuation and heartbreak that generally come in digestible three-and-a-half-minute bites. All together, the album plays like a left turn out of a neighborhood filled with winding streets into one that’s safely gridded.
