“This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realisation / it’s the sound of the unlocking and the lift away.” So sings Justin Vernon in the penultimate track of his debut LP For Emma, Forever Ago. It was a record that redefined the breakup album as a concept and launched a thousand copycats – Bon Iver’s simple melodic writing, haunting falsetto and emotionally vulnerable lyrics became iconic within certain circles of the musical community. When he was picked up by Jagjaguwar and the album was re-released in 2008, he was launched onto a worldwide platform and occupied the confusing duality of being both somewhat famous (play anyone ‘Skinny Love’ and you’ll see what I mean) while also living life in indie obscurity. Fast-forward eight years, and the same is no longer true. He’s worked with Kanye, he’s collaborated many times with James Blake, and in 2012 he was awarded two Grammy awards. For the past five years he has been silent – and yet has somehow become more present in the music industry. So when 22, A Million was announced, it was the source of a great deal of anticipation and excitement. We’ve been waiting five years, but 22, A Million was worth the wait.

While the new album may still not be “the sound of a new man”, it certainly is a new sound. Full of distortion, vocal manipulation, glitchy instruments and more saxophones than you can count, Vernon creates a sonic landscape through which we feel his emotional state before the lyrics are even heard. The poetry itself is spellbinding – he constantly confronts his inner demons, and we are granted the rare privilege of knowing his inner workings as he comes to understand them himself. In ‘715 – CR∑∑KS’ (which is strangely reminiscent of Iver’s older work ‘Woods’, famously sampled in Kanye’s ‘Lost In The World’), Vernon sings: “Toiling with your blood / I remember something / In B, un-rationed kissing on a night second to last / Finding both your hands as second sun came past the glass / And oh, I know it felt right and I had you in my grasp.”

His lyrics are so beautifully twisted, and his cathartic writing so clear to see that listening to his music feels like an intimate act – we see Justin Vernon’s blistered soul reaching out to us throughout, and we can only stand amazed. ‘715 - CR∑∑KS’ feels ultimately like a hymn for a past love – the vocal harmonies, the repeated chord patterns, and the repeated phrases “I remember something” and “turn around, you’re my A team” combine to make the sorrow seem almost religious.

The next song, entitled ‘33 GOD’, also explores religious themes, although admittedly in a much less subtle way. This consistency is a classic example of Iver’s writing style – everything has meaning, and everything is linked. Even smaller links, such as the way that ‘210 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄’ rhymes with ‘Beth/Rest’, the final track of 2011’s Bon Iver, Bon Iver, were significant to Vernon in the writing of the record, and it’s for this reason that the album stands out as special.

In ‘33 GOD’ Vernon sings “I’m still standing in the need of prayer”. It’s a line laced with cathartic meaning for the songwriter – he searches for healing through his music, and in many ways the music becomes his religion. And yet after two albums of Bon Iver he felt that the musical well had run dry. Trever Hagen (an old friend of Vernon’s) remarked that the “spectacular upheaval of life after these albums provoked an inner storm, a mental sickness for Justin. Of course it did.” Vernon found the spotlight a sickly place to be – to him, fame is the unwelcome side effect of success. And due to the deeply personal nature of his work, I’m not surprised. For Emma, Forever Ago was recorded in a solitary cabin in Wisconsin for him and his friends – the fact that his music means so much to so many people is a phenomenon not lost on Bon Iver – and so for his new record, he needed to rejuvenate the musical spring of the project.

And yet within his new sound, despite all his attempts to change both his and our attitude towards the music, the album remains solidly Bon Iver. The spirit behind the songs, and the recording techniques he uses are still familiar. The fifth track, ‘29 #Strafford APTS’ sounds like a track from Bon Iver, Bon Iver. The use of saxophones and background noise behind the more obvious gentle guitar writing creates an atmosphere of genuine nostalgia rarely heard in the pop scene today. The slight rhythmic confusion in the saxes around the 2:40 mark is a moment of understated beauty – the guitar sound cuts out, and we are left suddenly aware of the sound that has been present throughout the song. ‘29 #Strafford APTS’ is also home to my favourite lyric from the album: “Hallucinating Claire / Nor the snow shoe light or the autumns / Threw the meaning out the door / (Now could you be a friend) / There ain’t no meaning anymore / (Come kiss me here again).”

Vernon’s vocoder-like harmony vocals fill our ears, his slightly bitcrushed acoustic guitar continues throughout, and we are left suspended in a world of his creation. In an album so full of beautiful glitchy songs, it’s hard to pick a favourite – yet for me, ‘29 #Strafford APTS’ just might be that favourite.

Each song references a number of particular significance to Justin. 22 is his favourite number, and ‘22 (OVER S∞∞N)’ was both the first song to be written and to be released form the album. Based on the looped and manipulated phrase “it might be over soon”, the word “soon” is looped and pitch shifted so that we actually begin to hear “two, two”. The song is an homage to the dual nature that impermanence brings Vernon – yet another example of the songwriter’s interest in dualism (hence the yin and yang on the album cover, and the title 22, A Million). The final song, ‘00000 Million’ brings us full circle – he confesses to the way he’s suffered from anxiety and panic, and the effect that that has had on the album as he sings: “I’ve been to that grove / Where no matter the source is / And I walked off: how long I’d last / Sore-ring to cope, whole band on the canyon / When the days have no numbers’ / Well it harms me it harms me it harms, I’ll let it in.”

We are both brought right into his world and kept at arm’s length – the soundscape is deliberately inaccessible and yet the cryptic beauty of the lyrics give us no choice but to experience his thoughts as our own. The real genius of 22, A Million is more than simplistic songwriting and beautiful sounds – it’s the way that we become first-hand receivers of the very duality that is the focus of the LP, while also experiencing the discomfort that Vernon struggled through in its creation. 

The album is not easy to listen to – the content is painful and the sound is often distorted. On a first listen it may not seem overtly accessible – but as a work it stands out as a beacon of originality and musicality that remains consistently true to itself, and is consistently beautiful in all its imperfections.