Beyond the ick of Bon Iver

Some of Justin Vernon's new album Sable, Fable might not be as sexy/cool/Prince as he was going for, but does that really matter? By Sam Walton

I was halfway through my first listen of Bon Iver’s latest album – just coming out of the second chorus of ‘Everything Is Peaceful Love’, to be precise – when I had a moment of realisation about Justin Vernon: on and off, for the past 15 or so years (essentially since he ditched the solo acoustic guitar sadboi cabin-in-the-woods look of his breakout album, For Emma, Forever Ago, and became, to all intents and purposes, a singing producer) he’s wanted to be Prince.

He has a half-decent claim, too. After all, the corollaries with the Purple One are there: insanely musically competent across genres, with a disarmingly accurate pop-zeitgeist style radar? Check. Uncanny mix of ridiculously catchy mega-melodies and actually-quite-out-there sonic provocation, often all on the same LP? Yup. Unabashedly eccentric midwesterner who’s eschewed the lure of the American coasts to build his own slightly culty snowbound citadel in a flyover state? Yuh-huh. Madly prolific and scattergun approach to mak…