Bon Iver – Sable fable (Jagjaguwar) 13th Floor Album Review)
Bon Iver’s latest release, Sable, fable, arrives like a whisper in the dark—quiet, rich, and demanding your attention. Sonically, it returns to familiar folk roots while venturing outward, closing one chapter and tentatively opening another.
The album bookends itself with sonic unease and soft resolution, moving from sharp-edged experimentation to hushed catharsis. In between, it charts a journey across the emotional terrain of isolation and connection, darkness and light. The final track, Au Revoir, hints that this may be the end of the road for Justin Vernon under the Bon Iver name.
From the outset, Sable, fable feels tethered to the emotional solitude of For Emma, Forever Ago, though the context has shifted. That album was forged in self-imposed exile and chosen introspection; this one in a world forced into isolation, compelled to turn inward. Tracks like Things Behind THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS stir with unresolved tension, a pedal steel ringing out above clattering beats and layered vocals, like a mind grinding through layers of memory and regret. With “You know you’re hiding from yourself again,” Vernon dares the listener to look deeper inside.
Across the album, connection is sought through emotionally raw storytelling. S P E Y S I D E leans into confessional folk textures, with sparse guitar and spacious vocals. The careful spacing in the title mirrors the measured pacing of a conversation where every word matters. Songs like Walk Home and AWARDS SEASON deepen this narrative thread, unpacking the dissonance between public image and private ache. “It ain’t love if it don’t take all night,” Vernon murmurs, just on the edge of the mix.
Darkness permeates the record as a vital element of its storytelling. Tracks like If Only I Could Wait and Short Story sit uneasily between shadow and clarity. Their synths fizz and collapse, their rhythms unsteady, mirroring the precariousness of human emotion. But there is light, too. Everything Is Peaceful Love surprises with its blend of folk foundations and playful electronics, strings soaring around Vernon’s layered falsetto like sun through a storm. From and I’ll Be There ease into a calmer sonic palette, grounding the emotional upheaval in something steadier, more accepting.
The album’s shifting tempos, from the experimental bursts of Day One to the near-lullaby of There’s A Rhythm, serve as emotional punctuation. Au Revoir, the final track, floats on a bed of soft synths, providing a welcome and weightless release after a turbulent, dark, and internal journey.
And maybe that is the point. After all, sable is the deepest shade of black, and a fable is a story passed down. Sable, Fable tells its stories in twilight hues—the liminal space between something ending and something beginning. Whether or not Justin Vernon emerges next under a new name, the album stands as a masterful summation of everything Bon Iver has meant: a project rooted in solitude, transformed by connection, and always reaching for the transcendent in the broken. A whisper that lingers for longer than a scream.
John Bradbury
Album is released Friday, April 11th
