Part of the beauty of Bon Iver’s debut album,
For Emma, Forever Ago, was the intimate, backwoods feel of the recording and the simplicity of Justin Vernon's soaring, open wound of a voice with only minimal musical backing to distract from its impact. After a couple years in which his life was turned upside down thanks to the success of
For Emma, Vernon’s second album is quite different. Where
For Emma was stripped down and intimate, Bon Iver is packed with guest musicians, horn sections, strings, and extra vocalists. Within the expanded arrangements, there are still moments of tender beauty: the relatively restrained "Wash.," which pits Vernon’s aching vocal orchestra against a jagged, repeating piano line (and only minimal strings and pedal steel); the first two-thirds of "Holocene," and the simple and affecting "Michicant." ~ Tim Sendra, Rovi
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