Bon Iver’s 2008 debut album, notoriously recorded in a secluded cabin, was widely praised for its acoustic, introspective beauty. The band’s second album holds another kind of beauty: that of expansion and exploration. The lyrics are full of natural imagery—of ice and dirt and light (each track is even named after a particular locale). Snare drums, electric guitars, organs, and saxophones make for a full, textured, sound accentuated by the mixture of frontman Justin Vernon’s shivery falsetto over soulful harmonies. This is rare and richly layered indie-folk that makes the listener feel, as one chorus says, as if one can “see for miles, miles, miles.”
