Album Review; Bon Iver - For Emma Forever Ago

By J. Chaidez

Inspiring visions of a long, retrospective winter spent in the snowy landscape of the Midwest, Justin Vernon’s album For Emma, Forever Ago is nothing short of a progressive folk masterpiece. Made under the pseudonym of Bon Iver, the record has won critical praise and caused considerable commotion in the indie-folk community. Vernon has been compared to such modern folk idols as Iron and Whine and called the contemporary to the folk-rock group Grizzly Bear. Bon Iver himself has simply said, “I just knew that what I was doing was extremely honest. It was all the things I wanted my music to be.”
And that’s certainly what the project began as. In 2005, after a band break up, the end of a relationship, and a bout with a liver illness, Vernon found himself in Raleigh, North Carolina without direction in his art or his life. DeYarmond Edison, his old group, had been together for nearly a decade, and had been the driving force for his move from his hometown of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to Raleigh. One night, while watching an episode of the television program “Northern Exposure” in which the cast welcomed new snowfall as the coming of a “Bon Hiver” (French for “Good Winter”), Vernon was inspired to return to his birthplace. Retreating to a remote cabin with little more than his thoughts and a Silvertone guitar, he proceeded to record what would later become For Emma in the winter of 2006 and 2007.
The album itself is a new artistic frontier for Vernon. In DeYarmond, he sung in his speaking voice, a richly textured baritone. However, in 2005 he began experimenting with falsetto and multi-track, which became the distinguishing aspects of his music. The tracks on the album range from touching ballads such as “Re: Stacks” and “Skinny Love”, to those which produce distinctive textures through the use of resonator guitar and vocal overdubbing like “Lump Sum” and “Flume”, to those which display Vernon’s poetic skills such as “The Wolves (Act I and II)” and “Creature Fear”.
When considered in its entirety, the album is not a concept album, but rather a compilation of Vernon’s most recent work. Like many debuts, it represents the spring of his career, a time after which many artists fall flat. But Bon Iver’s Blood Bank EP, which is largely an addendum to the album, shows that he is capable of producing more than just a first round of great material. With a unique sound, and a much-needed new approach to being a singer-songwriter, Justin Vernon is poised to become a pivotal force in folk rock. As a friend of mine so eloquently put it, “ No one doesn’t like Bon Iver; they just haven’t heard him yet.”