If Bon Iver's remarkable 2008 debut, For Emma, Forever Ago, had a defining fault, it was likely its brevity. His new EP, Blood Bank, is guilty of the same charge, coming in at only four songs. Unfortunately, its faults--though few--are not limited to playback time.
For the record, Blood Bank is a great listen, and better on the whole than a lot of the EPs pumped out every year by indie acts looking to fill time. Yet the strength of its first half juxtaposed against the mediocre second half leaves a listener disappointed at the end of the EP's seventeen minutes.
The opening title track would be in its right place anywhere on For Emma and it's a great track to kick off this release and bring us back into Bon Iver's minimalist past. It is lyrically intriguing but just familiar enough musically that when Vernon sings "I know it well" ad nauseum at the song's conclusion, you want to agree.
Track two, "Beach Baby," is the EP's most satisfying song to my ear. Though beginning in the same manner as many of Bon Iver's tunes, the song develops quickly into something more, and is sort of a thumbnail of the EP itself: short and sweet, with a slight departure at the end. The song's reverberating slide guitar outro does not seem at all out of place, and leads nicely into what is to come.
While For Emma was lauded largely for its understated production and the intimacy if its sound, I can't fault Vernon for exploring new (though not altogether distant) territory on the second half of Blood Bank. For the most part, it's not a bad departure: the repetitive "Babys" blends familiar vocals with a whimsical dissonance of piano notes that recalls Sufjan Stevens' earlier work, and the album closer, "Woods," might have more promise if Vernon had stuck to the guy-with-a-guitar blueprint instead of going all Kanye on the Auto-Tune. Unfortunately, he went with the vocoder and, while interesting, capped off the EP on a low note with a somewhat directionless experiment.
All tolled, Blood Bank is a fine record, and perhaps does exactly what an EP should do in providing fans with a reminder of what they've come to love while offering a glimpse of what the artist is into right now, or even what's to come. If the latter is meant to be signaled by this EP's chronology, I'll have to hope that Vernon changes directions again before his next release. But even if he doesn't, I'll still check out whatever's next.
SITKOT rating: 45 out of 57
Download:
For the record, Blood Bank is a great listen, and better on the whole than a lot of the EPs pumped out every year by indie acts looking to fill time. Yet the strength of its first half juxtaposed against the mediocre second half leaves a listener disappointed at the end of the EP's seventeen minutes.
The opening title track would be in its right place anywhere on For Emma and it's a great track to kick off this release and bring us back into Bon Iver's minimalist past. It is lyrically intriguing but just familiar enough musically that when Vernon sings "I know it well" ad nauseum at the song's conclusion, you want to agree.
Track two, "Beach Baby," is the EP's most satisfying song to my ear. Though beginning in the same manner as many of Bon Iver's tunes, the song develops quickly into something more, and is sort of a thumbnail of the EP itself: short and sweet, with a slight departure at the end. The song's reverberating slide guitar outro does not seem at all out of place, and leads nicely into what is to come.
While For Emma was lauded largely for its understated production and the intimacy if its sound, I can't fault Vernon for exploring new (though not altogether distant) territory on the second half of Blood Bank. For the most part, it's not a bad departure: the repetitive "Babys" blends familiar vocals with a whimsical dissonance of piano notes that recalls Sufjan Stevens' earlier work, and the album closer, "Woods," might have more promise if Vernon had stuck to the guy-with-a-guitar blueprint instead of going all Kanye on the Auto-Tune. Unfortunately, he went with the vocoder and, while interesting, capped off the EP on a low note with a somewhat directionless experiment.
All tolled, Blood Bank is a fine record, and perhaps does exactly what an EP should do in providing fans with a reminder of what they've come to love while offering a glimpse of what the artist is into right now, or even what's to come. If the latter is meant to be signaled by this EP's chronology, I'll have to hope that Vernon changes directions again before his next release. But even if he doesn't, I'll still check out whatever's next.
SITKOT rating: 45 out of 57
Download:
Bon Iver – “Beach Baby” (Mediafire link)
UPDATE: Vernon is interviewed in the latest issue of Spin. Of note: "All these bloggers are going, 'Auto-tune is evil and people in the folk realm shouldn't use it.' This has nothing to do with anything. It was inspired by an Imogen Heap song, it's not a comment on [these other artists]. And even though blogs are tastemarkers and have exalted a lot of bands that went on to become successful, there's this clique mentality that just... Look, if you like Bruce Springsteen, like him. Don't wait for somebody to tell you it's cool again to like him." Touché.
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