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“SABLE, fABLE” is prominent indie folk band and father of indie singer garble Bon Iver’s fifth album released all the way back in April of this year. As I was a little preoccupied with the fear of imminent unemployment post-graduation, I couldn’t pump out a review yet, but hey – better late than never. 

The gimmick of SABLE, fABLE is that it is made of two EPs. The first EP SABLE was released back in 2024, and I really enjoyed all of the tracks. Comprising four quiet, earthy and melancholic tracks, SABLE feels like smoking a cig alone in winter whilst watching the sun rise. Epitomized in the coincidentally named “Speyside” (stylized as “S P E Y S I D E” for some reason), especially got me through some tough times. Even though my heart will always belong to this live version which features a beautiful SAXOPHONE intro, when Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon bursts out with “I know now that I can’t make good” over the ambient guitar track, it just hits y’know (it also helps that you can hear Vernon’s lyrics clearly for once!). For me, “Speyside” beautifully captures the feeling of deep regret for the totality of the mistakes that you’ve made whilst knowing that they will always be a part of you even when you move on, and it meant so much to me in a period of my life where I felt like every decision I’d made up until that point had been a mistake. 

“THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS”, another favorite of mine, displays a more meditative and spiritual side of the EP, where “I got caught compiling, I got caught compiling” – an ode to the heaviness of life and for me, a meditation on the hollowness of continuously torturing yourself with your most depressive thoughts in an attempt to glean some meaning out of your pain weighing heavy on the soul. 

If I was only rating SABLE, I’d give this album a much higher rating. Unfortunately, I’ve always been a much bigger fan of Bon Iver’s indie folk than the later electronic work, and SABLE, fABLE is very much a marriage of these two sides of their discography. It’s clearly structured to be SABLE being the dark and depressive period, and fABLE being the light at the end of the tunnel where the album becomes fully about welcoming a possible new love into one’s life. 

Yeah I hate to say it, but I actually did prefer the quiet, depressive music over the campier side of things. Part of it is probably because I can be a bit of a downer, but something about fABLE felt maximalist in an unrewarding way. I understand it’s meant to feel more upbeat and expansive, eclectic in a way that is supposed to capture the messiness of new love, but sometimes it approaches Coldplay territory with how incohesive and sentimental it feels (sorry to the Coldplay fans out there). 

Maybe it’s because the way Vernon describes this new relationship sounds like he’s going through his first situationship – for example, the track “There’s A Rhythmn” is clearly meant to be a sort of touching ode to a blossoming connection, but lines like “now I think you need some space” and “how you treat me good your way” make Vernon’s attraction to this lover feel a little one-sided. Perhaps that’s why I gravitated towards “If Only I Could Wait” featuring Danielle Haim from HAIM (who also released a new album this year – maybe I’ll get around to reviewing it…?), a spacey duet that muses on the fatigue in trying to keep up with the other person in a relationship. 

But even though I can’t say I really care for fABLE, I do like the concept of the two accompanying EPs, and it’s still a very pleasant listening experience when one finds themselves alone watching the waves as you disassociate amongst the families and couples passing by.

Best Track(s): “S P E Y S I D E”, “THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS”, “If Only I Could Wait”

Rating: 7.5/10