“Faces are for friends, friendship is for safekeeping, family is everything.” The heavily cryptic album artwork and liner notes for Bon Iver’s new album 22, A Million features these words inscribed. Unlike nothing he’s ever done before (which is sort of an understatement), the American folk/acoustic act’s latest release is steeped in numerology, with weird song titles and even weirder symbols and glyphs populating the song titles and artwork.
There’s definitely tons of speculation by critics in blogs, newspapers and magazines alike, about how this album (the follow-up to 2011’s Grammy-winning Bon Iver, Bon Iver) has religious overtones and is perhaps frontman Justin Vernon’s way of dealing with all the fame that came their way after the last album. This is, of course, in addition to the three year hiatus they took between 2012 and 2015.
They’ve returned with a highly experimental, dense package of music that lasts about 35 minutes. Sample-heavy, autotune-heavy and barely featuring any of their signature guitars, this is Bon Iver trying to be edgy for sure. But does it work? Certainly. ‘22 (OVER SN)’ is dreamily bright, making listeners familiar with the regular use of horns and saxophone throughout the album. The glitchy din on ‘10 d E A T h b R E a s T ’ is as different as it gets but you still wouldn’t call it weird. No, not even when Vernon brings out just routes his otherwise warming voice through autotune on ‘715 – CRKS’ as he introduces new phrases for lovers like “Turn around, you’re my A-Team”. The swell of “Find God And Religion Too” makes ‘33 “GOD”’ a little more electric and nearly in familiar territory for fans, talking about death. ‘29 #Strafford APTS’ brings back the warming glow of an acoustic guitar strummed over Vernon’s voice. But then that’s just what fits the mood. On ‘666 ’, Vernon talks about hearing, learning and laughing about faith amidst poignant drum work from Sean Carey.
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There’s a lot more cut up and chopped out experiments at play on songs like ‘8 (circle)’, ‘21 MN WATER’ and a return to similar ambient experimentation that started the album on ‘____45_____’, but it begins to test listeners. The hymn-like ‘00000 Million’ closes the album lightly, but the journey itself is a strange, introspective and ambitious one for Bon Iver.