Bon Iver - SABLE, fABLE

Justin Vernon is an artist who has gently traversed the thorny spectrum of cool for almost twenty years now with Bon Iver, sometimes having huge mainstream breakthroughs like winning Grammy Awards and collabing with Taylor Swift but at others content to quietly plough his own esoteric but distinctly singular furrow. You can kind of see him as an internet-age version of old 80s pop star Phil Collins. Prematurely balding, incredibly well connected, loves a bit of sax, good with a ballad but a bit awkward when the tempo increases, and he loves to spend time in the stu-stu-studio (ask your dads).

‘SABLE, fABLE’ is the fifth Bon Iver album, and it finds him in a slightly awkward but frequently very lovely middle ground between heart-stopping intimate balladry akin to his early days back in the cabin - like haunting opener ‘THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS’ or the soaring mostly acapella ‘AWARDS SEASON’ - and jittery funky electro pieces like the effervescent ‘Day One’. In the middle are relatively conventional but extremely well produced and musical FM radio pop songs like ‘From’ and the gloriously sunny and uplifting ‘Everything Is Peaceful Love’.

This isn’t really the album to burnish that kind of existential, mysterious dreamer factor that still gives Bon Iver such an allure; it’s simply too, well, nice for that. But in a world of uncertainty and chaos in 2025, there is absolutely nothing wrong with just being nice.