Justin Vernon must have found himself in a tough spot writing the successor to his 2008 opus, For Emma, Forever Ago. That album is so special on so many levels that it can be difficult to pin down what established it as such a seminal work in such a short amount of time. Some connect with the...

After listening to Bon Iver’s first album, For Emma, Forever Ago, I thought that Justin Vernon, the genius behind the band, should not put out another album because it would never compare. With tracks like ‘Lump Sum,’ ‘re:Stacks,’ and ‘Blindsided,’ I had never heard such...