I was first introduced to Bon Iver at thirteen, courtesy of the Twilight: New Moon soundtrack, which, in hindsight, says a lot about my emotional priorities. I wasn’t drawn to the glittering vampires, but the soundtrack’s muted, woodland ache. ‘Roslyn’, Bon Iver’s hushed duet with St Vincent, brought a quiet beauty to the melancholy of the forest — a soft sadness rendered cinematic. 

Since his debut, For Emma, Forever Ago, Bon Iver, whose real name is Justin Vernon, has made a career out of turning loneliness into layered introspection – each album was more canvas than record, with new details emerging on each re-listen. There’s always been the image of Vernon alone in the woods, fashioning art from ruin, gaining emotional clarity through solitude. His music holds the allure of fantasy: Vernon makes grief gleam, achingly enchanting in its quiet unravelling. 

SABLE, fABLE, however, doesn’t bask in emotional collapse. It plays more like a record of reconciliation and new beginnings, as though a salmon-coloured stream of light has begun to break through the dusty gloom of that fabled log cabin. The falsetto, isolation and cryptic emotional devastation aren’t gone, just transformed. Even if, like me, you prefer to dwell in the slow-burning ache and grandeur of Perth or Holocene, it’s hard not to smile at the sense of emotional growth here, like watching somebody get their glow back after a long winter. 

The glow arrives early, elegantly faltering at the boundary between the album’s two halves. The first half – originally released as the SABLE EP – is where Vernon’s signature sorrowful whispers are most palpable, occupying a liminal space between past and possibility. His voice is front and centre, and the arrangements feel less like production and more like framing – space as instrument. It registers as an existential testament to everything Bon Iver is and has been, sitting in the stillness of fear, staring down the precipice of change. 

“Nothing’s ever happened like I thought it would,” reflects Vernon on ‘S P E Y S I D E’, lingering in that emotion, which seeps into muted embrace of uncertainty of ‘AWARD SEASON’. It feels like a farewell to the gloom, the blind drawn open just enough to let the glow spill into the cabin – a subtle return to the raw intimacy of earlier Bon Iver before stepping into the unknown. 

The emotional core of the record arrives quietly in the handoff from ‘AWARDS SEASON’ into ‘Short Story’. It’s a transition that neither tries to impress nor reinvent; it just sits with something tender. For a moment, the sound and emotional essence become transcendent as Vernon sings, “January ain’t the whole world.” The line is cradled by the softest piano, gradually rising into a gospel-like emotional crescendo – not loud but deeply felt like small survivals and the slow shift of seasons. It’s here that the glow lands most gently. But that moment is fleeting. 

As fABLE continues, the stripped simplicity begins to wane. Pop-adjacent arrangements crowd Vernon’s clarity. His voice, once centre stage, often feels diffused into the mix, folded into textures more concerned with aesthetic than emotional weight. 

‘Walk Home’ especially begins to make the once-alluring glow of positivity feel monotonous, carrying the thinly veiled threat of generic hold music – a sonic glow so sanitised it’s halfway to customer service. Please, no. 

And it’s not the first time I’ve felt this disconnect, especially when folk artists trade raw emotion for pop polish and easy optimism. I had the same issue with Ben Howard’s Is It? – beautiful in places but buried under digital haze and abstraction that muted what once felt immediate. There’s a similar distance here: Vernon’s growth is evident, but his voice – once a raw, emotional centre – now often feels buffered by production. 

I don’t fault Vernon for turning toward the light – that’s the dream, isn’t it? To emerge from the wreckage and make something gentler. But part of what made Bon Iver’s earlier work so powerful was how closely it sat with sadness, how it held discomfort without flinching. SABLE, fABLE is graceful, often gorgeous, and full of Vernon’s unmistakable artistry. But where his past records reached into my ribs, this one mostly brushes past. The glow is beautiful. I just miss the dark of the old log cabin. 

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons