Artist: Bon Iver
Title: For Emma, Forever Ago
Format: Single LP
Label: 4AD
Catalogue Number: CAD2809
Year of Release: 2008
Tracklisting
A1 Flume (3:39)
A2 Lump Sum (3:21)
A3 Skinny Love (3:59)
A4 The Wolves (Act I And II) (5:22)
B1 Blindsided (5:29)
B2 Creature Fear (3:06)
B3 Team (1:57)
B4 For Emma (3:41)
B5 Re:Stacks (6:41)
The back-story to this album is probably familiar to the majority of people by now. The other reviews linked to below cover it in more detail, but in essence - man's band breaks up, man goes to log cabin for three winter months and mulls on life to date, man records album, critical acclaim ensues.
It is by no means a new sounding record. It would be hard to make an album that is principally acoustic guitar and vocals sound new. But it is very successful in capturing the winter mood, isolation and loneliness one would expect from holing up in a Wisconsin log cabin whilst thinking about past girlfriends and killing your own food.
And it is certainly a good record. Justin Vernon is a capable songwriter, and his falsetto delivery hits the right emotional pitch and sustains it well over this short album. What other instruments are involved are deftly deployed - the drums like fireworks on The Wolves, the horns on For Emma.
But every time I listen to this record, I find less to like. The more I look at the lyrics the more I find absurdities, not profundities. Familiarity isn't breeding contempt, as such, more the surety that I won't find anything new by listening to it again, unlike works by other artists. It's quite a two dimensional record, and whilst those two dimensions are very nice, three is generally preferable.
Other reviews of For Emma, Forever Ago:
Uncut
Popmatters
TinyMixTapes
I bought Blood Bank at the same time, which is reviewed here: Blood Bank
