Charli Jae chooses the song to bring Vaguely Indie Wednesday to a close, and it doesn’t feature anyone from Newcastle…
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Al Varela: Something about that calm ripple that plays over the dusty drums and keys makes this already lovely duet even more beautiful. Drifting away in that pool of melancholic yearning.
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Tim de Reuse: Starts off at 100% Bon Iver and only climbs from there; as it progresses, layering more and more and more syrup onto the mix (corporate-music twinkles, arpeggios, echoing chords, a whole string section near the end, reverb, reverb, oceans of reverb) it packs more and more sugar into a configuration that has no crust to give it form. Bon Iver and Haim’s voices attempt to share space with each other and it sounds more like a production mistake than an duet, especially when they’re talking past each other on competing lines. All this cotton candy hides a lyrical core comprised only of vaguely tenacious Iver-isms. “Keep holding on?” To what, exactly? There’s nothing here!
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Claire Davidson: The quaking synth notes that sound like an echoing vocal sample aren’t the first thing you hear on “If Only I Could Wait,” but they are the first thing that catches your attention The way these tones boomerang across the mix, bursting forth like a heartbeat before quickly evaporating, already evokes a potent wistfulness all on its own, but when paired with the track’s jagged rushes of guitar and Jim E-Stack’s shuffling percussion, the song strikes a balance between tempered weariness and eager optimism that promises a real lyrical awakening. Justin Vernon’s typically frail delivery, quavering but sonorous in timbre, is a natural fit for the meandering candor of his opening verse, capturing the discomfort of sitting with uncertainty with a palpably earnest wisdom. Danielle Haim’s delivery is a bit incongruous with Vernon’s, finding a relatively more conventional meter to her musings, but she has a place here, too, her beleaguered yearning a fitting counterpart to Vernon’s more idyllic daydreaming. Yet the tension between the performers’ more pensive delivery and the instrumentation’s halting energy suggests a sonic breakthrough that never really comes — rather than exploit this tonal contrast with true disruption, the two vocalists simply bridge this gap by coming together to harmonize on the outro and finally sing in tandem. That eventual resolution is poignant enough, sure, but for a track that operates with such grandeur, it feels like a half-measure in a song otherwise devoted to unvarnished emotionality.
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Nortey Dowuona: Jim-E Stack’s drums frustrated me as I began to listen. The first one was a slow, half step behind the then assembled synth lines and keyboards, the guitar hurling itself into my chest, a lush well played progression that comfortably fit, yet the drum programming upset me. Danielle Haim’s voice, however, comfortably soared in its uninterrupted glory before Vernon’s limpid baritone, just out of sync, just as Jim-E Stack’s first drum arrangement was, dragging the song backwards. So I listened again, but that first drum beat frustrated me even more. It felt as if 2 different loops were placed in the same session, and unable to kill his darling like Lucien Carr begged Allen Ginsburg to do, Jim-E forced both to share space as an artistic mistake turned into a moment of beauty. This did slowly begin to irk me less on the third listen, especially as I played it over the aforementioned film footage. But still through each listen, Danielle Haim’s warm, agave mezzo-soprano was dragged back by Vernon’s baritone, and only as they sang together did their voices mesh. And as the two drumbeats viciously slammed headfirst into each other, the beauty of the keys and guitar, even the lushness of the bassline and the sprinkles of viola and violin added by band member Rob Moore, finally began to impose on my heart. If only I could wait to let it grow on me.
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Alfred Soto: Like Christopher Cross reformatted as Chris Martin, Bon Iver waxes sensitive over heat lightning synths and bursts of guitar. Danielle Haim offers the usual emollients. Blankly pretty. Ideal as non-diegetic accompaniment to a movie love scene. Ask me about it tomorrow, though, and I’ll say it sucks.
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Ian Mathers: I still think 22, a Million is great, but I am a little nonplussed that when you dial back some of the fracturing that makes it so compelling you get… Bruce Hornsby doing Coldplay?
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Taylor Alatorre: Contemporary worship music for people who put down Mere Christianity once it started trying to explain the three-personed God. I mean that as a compliment; for both Lewis and Vernon, the direction of travel is what’s most important, even up to the final feared moment, “alone in highways.”
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