I wish I could love this more. Bon Iver has been the main soundtrack to my many descents and tumults of recent years, so I'm wondering if there's something inside me that's stubbornly resistant to this tonal shift into optimism. Unsurprisingly, I prefer the sparse gloom of
SABLE, to the lush dreamscapes of
fABLE - but I'll note that it took a while to fall fully in love with the EP last year, so maybe 'Disc 2' will continue to grow on me. There's some great stuff here: the segue from
SABLE, into
fABLE via 'Short Story' is wondrous, the actual sound of sunlight flooding into the darkness and washing away all the suffering within; 'Day One' is the kind of rousing sermon that I need more of in my world (
'you get sad enough because it's all you seek'); 'From' is one of the best straight-up pop songs in the Bon Iver oeuvre. A lot of the pre-released stuff that I wasn't so hot on ('Everything Is Peaceful Love', 'Walk Home', 'If Only I Could Wait') also plays better when considering the wider album and what it's trying to achieve. I guess I'm not as ready as Justin Vernon to let the light in (BROODING and TORTURED is a look that one wears so
well after all

), but I like the idea of someone who's mined despair to such beautiful effect deciding to step out and definitively embrace hope. There's something admirable in that, and perhaps it'll make more sense to me one day.