Album Review: De La Soul - Bon Iver - 22, A Million
The biggest surprise on Bon Iver’s third album comes right at the end, when Wicklow singer, Fionn Regan, is conjured as an ethereal sample. “Cause the days have no numbers,” croons Regan, as crepuscular piano keys shudder and groan. It’s quintessential Bon Iver — an ocean of feeling churning beneath an icy surface.
Regan’s moment arrives at the conclusion of ‘00000 Million’, one of the more conventionally folksy tracks on a collection that elsewhere buries its crowd-pleasing tendencies under drifts of feedback and vocal distortions. Such formal obtuseness has fuelled the idea that 22, A Million is Justin Vernon’s “coming to terms with fame” record, a dirge in 10 parts in which Kanye West’s hippest collaborator reflects on the endless ways celebrity can corrode the soul.
