Having been a latecomer to the ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ clamour, I feel I can still approach this record with some sense of objectivity. Of Justin Vernon’s debut LP I can honestly say that I have not completed a full listening of the record on a great number of occasions. Not because I dislike it, dear me no, much like everyone else I believe it to be one of the finest albums of 2008, and a beautiful addition to the catalogue of emotive, introspective, bleeding heart lo-fi albums that already exist. I’ve come to believe it is more because it is hard to be in the right mood to listen to it. It almost always leaves me with a sense of wistful melancholy, if not all out depression (though ‘depressing’ much rarely does that, in fact I find it to be quite the opposite), and due to the intense nature of the music, it feels a little odd and intrusive to play it in the living room whilst going about other things. In other words, it is an archetypical headphones record.
Blood Bank, the new EP, then. In short, the best way to think of this is as an add-on to For Emma. In a similar way, this is to For Emma, what the Sun Giant EP is to the Fleet Foxes LP. The title track and Beach Baby bear many of the hallmarks of a Vernon song, the hushed vocals and falsetto wails matching the softly strummed acoustic guitar. It has those gently cascading chords and lyrics that effortlessly evoke cold nights and warm fires and well, michty me, even if you lived in Hawaii I think you’d sense it. I think the latter is probably my favourite on the EP, utilising as it does the humming sound of a downtuned guitar. A resonator I think; a tone most clearly heard on Skinny Love from For Emma.
Babys and Woods, the final two tracks, are a mild departure. Woods, in particular, is rather unexpected. It builds up layers of a cappella vocals distorted through a vocoder, creating a sort of cacophonous choir of Vernons. It’s highly evocative, and probably the most challenging thing Bon Iver has produced to date. The production is also of such a quality that it is truly easy to place yourself at the moment of recording; as if you were sitting across the studio from Vernon (or in the case of Woods I see some sort of cave). A worthy stepping stone from For Emma, Forever Ago, Blood Bank suggests that Vernon hasn’t run out of ideas just yet, and that it’s time to look past the romanticized tale of the broken hearted man in the mountain cabin.
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