The brat feature turned out to be the perfect segue into Bon Iver’s latest EP, SABLE, released a week later. (One song on the three-track project, “S P E Y S I D E,” came out as a single in September, while “THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS” first debuted in 2020, at a virtual rally for Bernie Sanders.) If it’s not exactly a return to his For Emma, Forever Ago roots, SABLE does tap into the stripped-down melancholia that first earned Bon Iver a legion of heartbroken fans nearly two decades ago, along with the slightly more experimental sound on 22, A Million (2016) and i, i (2019).
An artist who tends to stay out of the public eye between projects, Vernon signaled his impending return this past summer, when he performed at a Harris-Walz rally in his native Wisconsin. While he regularly stumps for progressive candidates and raises funds for causes close to his heart, such as Everytown, Planned Parenthood, and the ACLU, Vernon doesn’t really produce the hopeful, aspirational songs that candidates like to use in their campaigns; doom and anxiety are more his speed.
With SABLE, however, Vernon doesn’t nod to the mood of the body politic so much as to his own inner turmoil. Over the hum of ambient noise on “AWARDS SEASON,” Vernon sings, a cappella: “I can handle / Way more than I can handle.” The statement may seem trite—that we as humans are all capable of bearing far more weight than we think possible—but he quickly goes deeper, tangling with self-medication (“So I keep reaching for the handle to flood my heart”), and the salt-in-the-wound pain of seeing an ex again (“But now it’s the season / And I know I will be seein’ ya / On the TV for some reason / God, my heart”).
In a season of unrest, it’s equal parts comforting and disconcerting to have new Bon Iver music out. Vernon’s personal heartbreak, translated into something as moving and universal as SABLE, seems to be arriving just in the nick of time.
