At long last, the Sheaf is back with 2019’s inaugural album of the week — kind of. At this point, 2019 has been rather unimpressive on the new album front, so we’re turning our eyes (and ears) a decade back to a 2009 classic. After all, why should old albums be forgotten and never brought to mind? 

After taking the aural world by storm in flurry of falsetto, folk and flannel in 2007 with For Emma, Forever Ago, Justin Vernon returned to the sonic foreground in January 2009 with Blood Bank, his somber sophomore EP under the moniker Bon Iver. This four-song-long work is distinguished from its folky predecessor through its vocal focus — “Woods” was even sampled by Kanye in 2010 — and provides the basis for Vernon’s genre-defining albums to follow.

Ten years on, Blood Bank harkens back to a simpler time, when plaid was aplenty and your favourite artists were more likely to have beards than ink on their faces. Ah, the days gone by.

—

Tanner Bayne / News Editor