Review Summary: The math ahead, the math behind
With glitchy beauty, made-up words, not quite human vocals and not quite long enough songs, Justin Vernon takes music to a new plateau, solves world hunger and institutes world peace. Declaring
these will just be places to me now Vernon denies the fevered place worship of
Bon Iver, Bon Iver and replaces it with something close to self-love (with a necessary amount of confused fumbling in the backseat beforehand). Maybe the place name-titles of the previous album were too easy because he throws a cluster*** of symbols and numbers at us this time, linking to the actual lyrics in elliptical and obscure ways. Pure description of events and places is shafted for a new mentality where memory is ultimate and places/people seem to merge into one, Modest Mouse-style. Vernon mixes it up with some filthy percussion on "deathbreast", trumpets that sound like they're being kicked to death on "MOON WATER" and even autotunes the accordion on "45" for a laugh. "#Strafford APTS" pops its head up at the halfway point to remind us that he can still drop a heartbreaking folk tune and even keeps in with the place-naming titles of
Bon Iver, Bon Iver. One of the most interesting diversions is "CREEKS", a battle between falsetto Justin and vocoder Justin on who can sound more like they're decomposing as we listen but Nick Cave already won that for this year, dickheads. If there's a theme throughout it's a push-and-pull; the yin and yang on the cover, the folk side and the electronic side, the 22 and the million. Vernon teases us with answers like a master riddler, dancing around with wordsmithery and experimental bull***; but like the best storytellers, he knows true closure is unrealistic and the best he can offer is a shrug and an outreached hand in "I'm right there with you" solidarity. It's enough. In the end, numbers and symbols and Aphex Twin keyboard-as-punching-bag song titles mean nothing.
The days have no numbers; life is not something to be reduced to beautiful poetic nonsense. Ironically, Vernon uses his most powerfully composed music yet to warn us against listening too much, against relying on our favourite artists and idols to make sense of our lives for us, against waiting for that moment of enlightenment for too long only to realise that we've waited our whole lives. Gnosis ain't gonna buy the groceries.
