Indie folk band Bon Iver released “SABLE,” on Oct. 18, 2024 — their first new project in five years. The extended play included 4 new songs from the band.
Bon Iver was formed in 2006 and currently consists of main vocalist and founder Justin Vernon, Sean Carey, Matthew McCaughan, Andrew Fitzpatrick, Mike Lewis and Jenn Wasner.
The three lyrical songs were written on tour between 2020-2023. All were written by Justin Vernon and pay tribute to his debut album “For Emma, Forever Ago” released in July 2007.
The album begins with “…”, an 11 second high pitched instrumental. While the song is short and no words are said, listeners can feel a sense of longing and dread. It felt like a flashback scene in a movie and is a perfect way to encapsulate the theme of the album: loneliness and regret.
“THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS” is the second song on the album. The song depicts how trauma is dealt with and that even if you unpack it, there will always be more hiding in the back.
The song plays with repetition of several lines including the titular sentence. Because of this, there is a sense of desperation. It’s as if Vernon was trying to explain the feeling and chooses to use this metaphor in hopes someone could understand.
“I think we were talking about the metaphor of pain and trauma that we all possess, it’s like a garage with too much shit in there and there’s ‘things behind things behind things,’” Vernon said during a concert at North House Folk School in Minnesota.
Slow and soft playing instruments accompany Vernon’s voice — adding a sense of rawness to the performance.
“S P E Y S I D E” follows with the continuing theme of intimacy. The song features Vernon’s voice alongside a soft guitar as he sings about his experiences with people and how he ends up destroying anything he loves.
In this song, he ponders how to address those who he has hurt and asks himself why he keeps doing so.
“When I made this song, I was feeling a lot of guilt, which is an important emotion to have. It’s also an important emotion to put yourself past,” Vernon said during a concert at Ovo Arena Wembley.
While the beginning seemingly shows no solution and feel helpless, towards the end he pleads for forgiveness. He doesn’t know what is wrong with him, and he can’t just fix any mistakes he’s made in the past few years, but he hopes he can still be a person by the end of it.
The fourth and final song of the album “AWARDS SEASON” begins with a confession of feeling overwhelmed, but in the same line contradicts itself and the singer admits he can handle all of it — even if he didn’t think so at the start.
The song deals with the feeling of change — an anxiety-inducing thought for a lot of people. Change can be bad, but it could also be great. It could be a sign of growth.
There’s a feeling of drowning during the middle where there is an instrumental break, and while there’s not a solution, there is a sense of ease within the singer by the end. He knows that things change, but not memories.
A beautiful EP through and through, “SABLE,” makes listeners truly evaluate their life decisions, but in a way that will hopefully give them the feeling that everything will be okay in the end.
