Album Review: Bon Iver - 22 A Million

Have you seen the track list for 22, A Million?

It's the stuff of nightmares if you're in the phonetics or radio announcing games. There are song names like 666 ʇ (pronounced six six six upside down arrow), 21 M◊◊N WATER and others that not even the symbol function in Microsoft Word can find. And while the novelty, admittedly, does wear off quickly, the angular and scattered titles accurately reflect the songs themselves.

For an artist whose audience has been so enamoured by his voice and instrumental arrangements across his career, with 22, A Million Justin Vernon has thrown down the gauntlet. Gone are most of the lush layers of For Emma, Forever Ago and Bon Iver, Bon Iver, replaced by auto-tune, glitchy beats and largely incomprehensible samples (including an uncredited Stevie Nicks sample on 10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄). 8 (circle) and 00000 Million are two exceptions, the former being the only five-minute track that could easily sit on his previous two records, the latter pulled out of the Coldplay piano ballad playbook.

For the majority of 22, A Million, though, this change in direction will be initially disconcerting. Whether fans react in the same divisive way as they did when Radiohead released Kid A or when Bob Dylan released Bringing It All Back Home remains to be seen. But this album - for better or worse - will challenge those listeners whose only relationship with Vernon is via Bon Iver to extricate the artist from the pigeonhole of a love song balladeer and recognise his undeniable artistic talent, removed from genre.