(Jagjaguwar)
Bon Iver is not a poodle-haired wimp rocker from the streets of Jersey, always chasing the legend of Bruce Springstreen, forever out of reach due to a lack of vision and distracted by poon.
Bon Iver is not a schoolboy ball rocker from Australia, determined to do nothing but rock, drink and score some trim.
Bon Iver, aka Justin Vernon, is a nice young man who probably wrote poetry in high school. He probably did it to get girls, but pretended like he did it just because he was, like, really deep. Next, he probably went to art school, mostly to get girls.
At this point, you probably can tell how you’d feel about this record.
Make no mistake — the music is lovely. He probably would like to be Jeff Buckley or Peter Gabriel when he grows up. Vernon can create moods, paint pictures with his guitar; it’s his incessant, forced falsetto that loses the contest for him. Like a 12-year-old with a beard, it weighs him down and makes you forget there’s a person buried underneath.
c. 2008 LEO Weekly
