Bon Iver – The Light Appears

A surprise second album in 2023 from The National caught everyone off guard. Songs originally written/recorded around the time of the First Two Pages of Frankenstein album were later honed and further worked on during the band’s summer tour the recorded with producer Tucker Martine. The immediate difference between the two albums is the more extensive use of Bryan Devendorf on live drums vs the programmed drums on Frankenstein. This immediately brings life to songs like “Dead End (Paul’s In Pieces)” and “Turn off the House”.

A major talking point upon the release of Frankenstein was the writers block that Berninger suffered when trying to write lyrics for the album. That narrative doesn’t exist here, the album doesn’t sound as weighted down. Guests make appearances including Bon Iver on the very good “Weird Goodbyes” where “the sky is leaking/the windshield’s crying”. A return of Phoebe Bridgers who’s voice blends beautifully with Berninger’s on the title track, an album highlight.

The fussy strings and synths underneath “Alphabet City” add a layer of tension. The band extends tracks like “Space Invader” that turns into a helluva jam and album closer “Smoke Detector”, a menacing track filled with stream of conscious lyrics. Not all of it works, like the Roseanne Cash track “Crumble” but in the end, Laugh Track is a welcome addition to their 2023 releases. It works in tandem with Frankenstein and gives the band several more great songs to draw from.

7.5/10

There is a great mythology around the first Bon Iver album, For Emma, Forever Ago. After watching his former band break up then contracting mono and a liver infection, Justin Vernon moved away from Raleigh, North Carolina and back home to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Like a Jack Kerouac type figure, for several months Vernon stayed at his Dad’s cabin in the woods and worked on the songs that would form this debut album. The album was self released in 2007 then later re-released by Jagjaguwar in early 2008.

“Flume” is the track that turned Vernon’s music career around. Working with an acoustic guitar and experimenting with a falsetto for the first time, it opened up more possibilities to be vulnerable with an added effect of tracking his own vocals to sound like a choir. First single “Skinny Love” sees Vernon tell a partner “I told you to be patient….and I told you to be kind” in a relationship that doesn’t have a lot of weight to it. “What might have been lost” turns “The Wolves (Act I and II)” into a mantra of sorts. Both “Lump Sum” and “Blindsided” feature memorable guitar hooks while “For Emma” adds a nice addition of horns.

For Emma is mostly an acoustic album and one that is added to by the story surrounding it. It can feel claustrophobic at times but also celebratory as a young man works through the troubles in his life alone. Justin Vernon has gone on to work with James Blake, Kanye West and most recently with Taylor Swift while also curating a music festival in Wisconsin. A lot of that success started with this album that is included in Rolling Stone magazine’s most recent top 500 albums of all time. It is a lowkey standout album from the first decade of the 2000s.

8.5/10

Tag: Bon Iver

The National – Laugh Track (2023)

Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago (2008)