Dreams do come true. Just ask Justin Vernon, a man who once reportedly sold mobile phones in Galway's Eyre Square for a living (note: this could be an elaborate urban myth), who took his broken heart to a house in the American wilderness and wrung one of last year's most poignant albums out of the whole experience. Having won the allegiance of millions with 'For Emma, Forever Ago', main Iver man Vernon releases this stop-gap EP to keep hearts continually swooning - but don't dismiss these four tracks as filler.
No question about it, Blood Bank provides more of the same heavyhearted fodder that Bon Iver excel at, but there's something about Vernon's voice on the title track - a brittle despondency that's somehow also incredibly euphoric - that'll keep you glued you to this EP. The title track could easily have been lifted from the album, and perhaps the bare acoustic and slide-work of Beach Baby, too; but it's closer, Woods, that'll leave most heads sore from scratching. Layer upon layer of Vernon's beautiful AutoTune-embellished falsetto builds to a bizarre Barbershop Quartet-like climax that really shouldn't work, but does so, superbly. One-trick pony? Not this one.