Rating: NNN
Bon Iver’s newest offering is just four songs long, but it’s enough to hold fans until Justin Vernon births a full-length follow-up to 2008’s acclaimed For Emma, Forever Ago. The EP sees Vernon stretch his songwriting and singing muscles, most notably on the a cappella Auto-Tune experiment Woods. Initially off-putting due to the pitch-corrector’s close association with the grossest of gross pop, Woods slowly enchants with mesmerizing vocal layers that pay no mind to verse/chorus/verse conventions.
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None of the songs do, really, though the title track – about love found at the blood bank and set in motion in a cold parked car where candy bars are ingested and kisses exchanged – comes closest. Even then, a single weary high note functions as the chorus. Sandwiched between Blood Bank and Woods are two lesser songs, both ghostly in that appealing Bon Iver way but ultimately too lyrically and rhythmically flimsy to make a lasting impression.
Top track: Woods
