Editor's Note: This review was written a while ago -- like, over a year ago. The author has chosen not edit it for its publication today, as he finds it to be a bit of a time capsule, if you will, to a pre-2017 world. The innocence that can be read between each line proved too wholesome to alter. 2016 was a simpler time. A better time. And back in 2016, Justin Vernon dropped 22 a million on us. Here is what our intrepid Sad Moth reporter wrote:
Justin Vernon is back, motherfuckers, and he's got an album that is a significant departure from his previous albums -- in sound, packaging, and song naming conventions.
As someone who owns with album on vinyl, I think that I understand it's artistic statement a little better than the rest of y'all. This album is weird -- kind of. I mean, you know Justin Vernon thinks its a freaking sonic revolution, but Justin Vernon's opinion of his own art can never be considered a very accurate reflection of reality. There's a lot of samples, a lot of electronic instrumentation, he's got some high-pitched Kanye-soul-sample-voice popping in here and there, lots of synthetic drums, and of course plenty of auto-tuned, multi-layered Bon Iver voice. One thing I noticed about the sound is there's an odd amount of sonic imperfection. Instruments and samples sometimes cut in and out roughly. (Check out the first track to hear what I'm talking about). This initially annoyed me, but after repeat listens I think this roughness is intentional, and is an interesting concept. He's kind of making an aesthetic out of this kind of digital sonic imperfection. He doesn't really go anywhere with this idea, but it's present and kinda cool. On the whole the sound of the album is very pleasant, and pretty inventive, though not really "experimental" in the way that term is normally used.
The first two tracks, which were released as singles at the one and only Eaux Claires festival, are probably the worst two songs on the album. The third track, 715 - CRΣΣKS, isn't really a song at all, but heavily autotuned acapella rambling. Then things start to pick up with 33 "GOD". Then there's 29 #Strafford APTS, which I think is undoubtedly the best song on the album. The chord progression is fantastic. It sounds almost like a lushly arranged country-western ballad. From then on there's a number of other solid songs, but it kind of slowly goes down hill. By the time you get to ____45_____ and 00000 Million you're kind of back to the half-baked, pleasant sounding filler that is found at the start of the album.
This album is only 32 minutes long. It's a short album. If you own it on vinyl (as I do you fookin dips) there's plenty of blank space on the disc. And that's no problem if the music's good. But what you can't have on a half an hour album is 15 minutes of half-baked, uninteresting filler. And that's what's going on here. It's all pretty pleasant, but every time this album ends I just think "that's it?" There's just not a lot of music that goes anywhere on this thing, and for that reason I just don't think I can say that it's that good.
For a while, I was really optimistic about this album. I thought the singles he released (the first two tracks) were bad, and when I listened to the whole thing, my initial reaction was excitement, because most of the other tracks were better. But over time I slowly grew more and more unsatisfied with it. It just really didn't hold up to repeat listens for me. It's kind of inexplicable. He took five fucking years to make this thing. You would think things would come out more fully formed. Maybe he was just too busy. Justin's got a tight schedule I'm sure. Between figuring out how to maximize dehydration at his music festival, thinking up song titles by holding down the alt key and smashing his keyboard, and designing the twenty-two page lyric book/art book that accompanies the vinyl version of the album, I'm sure he was a busy man. And though I absolutely eat up all of the stupid, freshman-in-art-school shit about this album, I would have loved for Justin to take some time out of his day to write and record and album's worth of good songs. I am sad to report that I don't think that it happened.
6/10
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