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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
New blood from Bon Iver gives tantalising glimpses about where this gifted artist could go next., 20 Jan 2009
After an artist has had critically acclaimed and successful debut album the pressure is on them for the follow up. Will it be as good? Will it see them change what it was that made them flourish in the first place. Bon Iver,s Justin Vernon has got around the thorny problem of following up the brilliant For Emma Forever Ago by releasing a four track E.P. Bearing in mind that the material on Bloodank was recorded between December 2006 and January 2007 it doesn't represent a massive step forward but it does peel off on a couple of unexpected tantalising tangents.
The title track is the best song on here. A quite brilliant song with the superb vocals high in the mix over artfully strummed guitar chords till the brief refrain of "I know it well " where Venons voice becomes all hushed like he's imparting a painful secret .The feedback at the end is nice abrasive touch as well.
The brief "Beach Baby" is probably the song most redolent of Emma Forever but while it is , as ever, superbly sung it is the weakest track here. "Babys" is where it gets interesting in the sense of something dissimilar emerging .Built around a plonking one note piano chord with intervening bouts of shifty silence it ascends to something almost desperate. "Woods" has vocoded choral vocals overlapping in various keys to the again hazily frantic conclusion.
As an appendix to Emma Forever Bloodbank is well worth hearing .It offers the listener much of what they probably cherished about the album while giving tantalising and possibly surprising hints at just how far this gifted artist could go .
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Blood on the log-cabin floor (7/10), 24 Jan 2009
Vocoders: yes or no? The use of such synthesized vocals took a big dip in fashion between its Kraftwerk and ELO heyday and its minor resurgence under the auspices of so-called Chill Out acts such as Air and Bent. However, it is a sound probably most commonly associated these days with urban music - from R'n'B to Hip Hop and Garage - which is why 2008's favourite log-cabin dwelling folk experimentalist Bon Iver (aka Justin Vernon) seems an unlikely exponent of this divisive tool. His stunning album, 'For Emma, Forever Ago', was an intimate acoustic album with lo-fi electronic shadings, very rustic, not very bling. But it did use Auto-Tune to thicken and add impressionistic bite to his vocals on some tracks, albeit fairly sparingly - quite unusually for a folk artist (though I anticipate someone contradicting me here). 'In the Woods', one track on his new, stop gap EP 'Blood Bank', is a kind of Auto-Tune a capella, a layer cake of soulful, heavily synthesized - but thematically bucolic - harmonies. It will sound one of two ways, depending on how disposed you are to such textures: either like Craig David ad libbing on a country walk or the work of a bold musical maverick (i.e., not Craig David ad libbing on a country walk). I haven't decided yet.
Setting 'In the Woods' aside, 'Blood Bank' is a low-key four track release, presumably to keep appetites whetted for Vernon's next full-length. The vocals on the eponymous track are throatier, huskier than we're accustomed to from him, with a pleasing hook adding levity to murky production which is finally subsumed in a fog of Jim O'Rourke-esque distortion. 'Beach Baby' is the lilting falsetto ballad that perhaps Vernon is eager to avoid becoming expected to write (lovely though it is) featuring a deliciously offbeat country twang with a Hawaiian accent. Think of Wilco's underrated 'Sky Blue Sky' for clues. The more expansive, experimental 'Babys' drifts on a Philip Glass-esque piano refrain, but doesn't quite engage in the ways it promises to. An interim release rather than a taster of things to come, 'Blood Bank' will satisfy the already won-over - Vocoders and all - but may not convince the unconverted.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nice Stop Gap, 11 Jan 2009
Bon Iver has produced a nice little filler for those of us avidly awaiting his next album. Blood bank offers 4 new songs, each quite different. 'Blood bank' could have fitted nicely on the last album, a gentle reverby acoustic number which builds beautifully through the song. 'Beach baby' is a quiet, lightly strummed ode, sung in his high falsetto. 'Babys', recalls Steve Reich/Sufjan Stevens, with simple repetitive figures on piano - a mood piece, with vocals introduced half-way through - sublime. 'Woods' is less interesting perhaps, a beach boys like song sung through synthesisers.
All in all, for the 1st and 3rd songs alone, this is a worthy addition for fans. Bring on the next album!
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~ Bon Iver
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