| ⭐⭐⭐✨ |
The somewhat elusive folk-rockers have gone back to the drawing board, following their massive 2022 drop ‘Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You’. Not necessarily to re-invent their entire wheel or anything, but more so to dig deeper into our shared, yet individual experience of life. It somehow feels loftier in concept than their last, calling less upon rustic humility and more on cosmic groove. These choices make sense, they need to break new musical ground eventually. When you peak in a particular wheelhouse, you have to see what else you’re capable of. The result of this shift being a far tighter tracklist, just nine to be specific. This affects overall runtime, but it also forces a certain brevity in the songwriting department that adds further challenge to the thematic grandiosity the band is shooting for.
It’s pertinent to mention the departure of their fourth member, Max Oleartchik. This separation left an instant hole in the band’s dynamic that needed to be filled. Rather than throw a placeholder into the mix, potentially muddling the chemistry, Big Thief has decided to stick to three; using this loss as a learning curve. The result is a decidedly more psychedelic sound palette. Where on ‘Dragon’, Big Thief stuck to the basics to lend each song life, ‘Double Infinity’ has the group banking on the supplementary to fill the void. Most of these tracks are still constructed by the usual suspects though: guitar (acoustic or electric, depending on what the song calls for), bass, and drums. Lenker’s voice opts to float on top like another instrument, not as forthright this time as perhaps it has been in the past. This is not a huge problem for the record, though it does occasionally leave certain tracks feeling a little aimless. I’m particularly thinking of a song like ‘No Fear’, which finds itself in no man’s land by the halfway mark. The lumbering pace doesn’t do it any real favours either.
On the subject of shortcomings, the opening two cuts struggle to leave a mark too. ‘Incomprehensible’ is a swirling banquet of finer details that don’t seem to compliment the other. It exists somewhere in the subconscious, yet if you asked me to recall it when I woke up, I would be hard-pressed. In a similar fashion, ‘Words’ is accompanied by a shuffling beat, busy acoustic guitar arpeggios, and surprisingly harsh echos that clash more than they clarify. Adrianne is amongst all of this, probably doing some great work. The music doesn’t seem to want us to hear it though. In a frustrating turn of events, the track ‘Happy With You’ suffers from superficiality. The repetition of the track’s titular refrain becomes redundant, especially as Lenker insists on questioning why she should explain herself further. Adrianne, please! Say more words!
Thankfully, the positives do outweigh the negatives. ‘Los Angeles’ is the first real swing in the right direction. It bests a cut like ‘No Fear’ by constructing a core that feels greater than the sum of its parts. Even as the memories being recalled in the lyrics seem far away; untethered, the tune brings a sense of grounding. Equally the case is the following ‘All Night All Day’, a serenade ultimately about human physicality on the intimacy side of things (another way to say it’s horny, basically). There’s something about the aesthetic that feels distinctly late-90’s/early 2000’s pop – think something like Dido. It’s a pang of nostalgia on top of the already innate feelings being communicated. The closer ‘How Could I Have Known’ feels truer to what the group were playing with back in their U.F.O.F days, and this return to something older does feel refreshing. The gentle swells of strings are a sweet touch, elevating the otherwise very simple instrumental backing.
Big Thief show potential with their latest. Not just conceptually, but musically too. It’s by no means a flop, and for all of the moments I can critique, I can just as easily encourage them. The point of this review is not to belittle the change of pace, or the newer stylistic experiments. Instead, the idea is to implore the band to lean even harder into it. As well as that, find a better balance between the already-established rootsy singing and songwriting, and the sort of neo-psych trippiness they obviously want to incorporate. Ultimately, the song still has to come first, especially within the folk & singer-songwriting field. Further exploration of these sounds may aid further exploration of the lyrical themes, and that can only be a positive thing.
Dan Will Review 