the (second) Bon Iver album

have loved all 4 of the new ones so far. U and Faith maybe above the others.

U (Man Like) > Faith > Hey, Ma > Jelmore

the album is out early and i'm really liking it on first listen - probably my favourite of his? a successful improvement on the samples-and-synths-everywhere sound of the last one which had some cool ideas but it felt too fragmented for it to really work that well overall. goes much further into sublime sophisti- (and i want to say kinda balearic in places) territory than his previous work too - "salem" and "sh'diah" are especially good.

Feel like some of the early over-praise for this is music over-correcting for the fact that they didn't call 22, A Million as being his best album by a distance.

*music critics

Yeah, perhaps. I repped for 22, A Million (even in this thread) but eventually for me, the live reworkings superceded the album versions. The December 2016 show at Pioneer Works seems the definitive listen these days. I'm still underwhelmed by the new record.

idk the critical praise for this seems pretty in line with the last two overall, maybe a little weaker if anything.

22, a million has some of his best work (particularly the middle section of "33 god"/"29 strafford apts"/"666") but as an album it doesn't work that well for me. it's very dense with ideas but doesn't really let them breathe, especially on the first two tracks. "45" and "00000 million" are pretty slight as songs too

Wore out For Emma, Forever Ago in response to a rough breakup back in 2008. I doubt I'll ever revisit it but it did what it had to most effectively. None of his subsequent records have held my attention.

Don’t care for this one at all; I did like the last one though. This just seems like a less interesting retread.

Good tip-off re that Pioneer Works show, Doug.

Curious to know how other Bon Iver fans received the Taylor Swift duet "Exile"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osdoLjUNFnA

still sticking on 22, A Million on the reg

Not massively feeling the new S Carey, so far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWvRRwJOfY4

Flagging this for my fellow Vernon fans: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/deyarmond-edison-epoch/

Epoch begins with a dilemma. To explain why the avant-Americana quartet DeYarmond Edison is worth remembering, the box set would have to start with the recordings they made closer to the end of their mayfly lifespan. But to tell the whole story, it would have to start with Mount Vernon, their precociously professional teen band, whose songs, as the accompanying book gently concedes, may grate on the adult sensibilities at which this handsome shelf-buster is aimed. That they appear at the beginning anyway shows just how hard Epoch comes down on the side of storytelling. It’s a work of music journalism as much as a portfolio of songs, excavating how Justin Vernon, Joe Westerlund, and brothers Brad and Phil Cook grew up together in Wisconsin, rampantly evolved in North Carolina, and split off asymmetrically, with three of them earning modest acclaim as Megafaun and one earning Grammy awards and Taylor Swift guest spots as Bon Iver.

The box is divided into six chronological parts, beginning with All of Us Free, an LP that captures DeYarmond Edison taking shape in the late 1990s and early ’00s. The second LP, Silent Signs, reproduces their second album, which they recorded just before leaving Eau Claire. That Was Then consists of four CDs documenting the performances in which they dynamited their newly refined sound, and these discs form the messy, brilliant heart of the box and the band. The LP Epoch, Etc. is the sound of them breaking apart under the stress, and hazeltons is Vernon breaking out on his own. The set concludes with the LP Where We Belong, with an A-side of recrimination and a B-side of reconciliation.

Epoch was executive produced by Grayson Haver Currin, a Pitchfork contributor who also wrote the 114-page accompaniment, Time to Know. When DeYarmond Edison moved from the Chippewa Valley to the Southern capital of Raleigh in 2005, Haver Currin became a friend and fan, and the project is such a close study of their bond that it becomes a monument for friendship writ large—how it fits people together, changes them until they fit no more, and then, with patience, rejoins them at new seams.