After retreating to a hunting cabin in Northern Wisconsin to “clear his head”, Justin Vernon came back with an album of beautiful songs, from which ‘For Emma’ is the first official single release.
The opening heartfelt, echoing slide guitar recalls Mazzy Star though the almost mechanically repetitive acoustic guitar rhythm gives the song a jagged edge, while Vernon’s high-strung falsetto tells of love’s cruel pain far more openly than Hope Sandoval’s hushed tones. But what really makes the song is the wonderful horns (added later in the studio) that add glory and grandeur to the gloomy cabin door blues.
