Despite opening this album with the admission that “I have been afraid of changing”, indie-folk miserablist Justin Vernon really gets his groove on with SABLE, fABLE, his fifth album with Bon Iver. After all the years of circling his lo-fi anxiety, it’s lovely to hear him break out of the log cabin of his own head and breathe in the wholesome wonders of the outside world.
Although he’s spoken of making “radiant pop music”, his version of that (with the help of producer Jim-E Stack) is to brighten his earthy, acoustic landscapes with synths and drum pads. It’s not dissimilar to what Sufjan Stevens likes to do when finding the silver linings in his own clouds. Single “Everything is Peaceful Love” finds him exalting the ordinary world. “Damn, if I’m not climbing up a tree right now!” he sings, falsetto notes reaching skywards over the slinky, sexy, soulful roll of electro-acoustic fusion. You can almost feel the soft, supple rubber of the 80s-style drum pads flexing beneath Ben Lester’s easy-going pedal steel solo.
Explaining his new philosophy in a Spotify interview with Lil Yachty, Vernon said: “Somebody came into my life and rearranged it.” As a consequence he “started to repair the past”, quit smoking and realised that “maybe I shouldn’t put true love on a pedestal, maybe I should put it down here where it is”.
To set the mood, the album opens with the three “heavy” songs that appeared on the SABLE EP. It’s a 12-minute triptych of 3am self-reckonings. Vernon is competing with the man in the mirror over the flute and trumpet of “THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS”. Over the solo man ’n’ guitar lament of “S P E Y S I D E” he acknowledges that he “can’t make good” on the pain he’s caused others. The pressure begins to alleviate with the warm piano, stretched steel and golden sax of “AWARDS SEASON”, a song reaching for hope but still somewhat stuck in the circular thinking loops of internal rhymes.
The upper-case pressure in the song titles gives way to a gentle embrace of lower case across the next nine tracks. Vernon cedes the mic to Kacy Hill, Sean Carey, Jenn Wasner on “Short Story”, allowing the trio to hail “Oh the vibrance! The sun in my eyes!” before some sour candy synths slide us onto “Everything is Peaceful Love”. There’s a likeable hint of upmarket Eighties dad rock (think of Bruce Hornsby’s work with Peter Gabriel’s So era) to “Walk Home” and “Day One” (feat Dijon and Flock of Dimes) with its earnest delivery, car stereo flooding bass, piano chords and pitched up vocal and hook.
Country radio geetar and click track mellow things out on “From” while a Prince-indebted R&B horn section and layered backing vocals (that sound like the singers are swaying in tube dresses) snakes its way though “I’ll be There”. The track builds to a motivational hymn to keeping “the sad s*** off your phone” and getting “your fine ass on the road”. A cool-headed Danielle Haim joins the party over the crunchy electric riff of “If Only I Could Wait” before the jazzy keyboard of “There’s a Rhythm” finds Vernon asking “Can I really still complain?” before deciding the best plan is to “get tall and walk away”.
Apparently, he’s launching this record in LA by participating in a basketball tournament (sending fans into a frenzy of speculation about which other introspective musos might turn out to surprise us by proving themselves hoop-shooting aces). It’s cool to hear Vernon choosing fun at last. It’s a decision that’s opened up a whole new court for his melodies to play in. A slam dunk.
