Big Thief ‘Double Infinity’ Review: Nakedly Visceral Atmospherics

Simply because the lonesome, echoey ambiance of Emmylou Harris’s 1995 album Wrecking Ball represented a career-shifting break from nation orthodoxy for the Americana legend, Big Thief’s Double Infinity sees Adrianne Lenker and her band shedding their normal ragged, rustic fashion in favor of a extra polished, atmospheric strategy.

Like a much less moody “Deeper Properly,” the album’s lead single, “Incomprehensible,” is all glassy, droning guitars and craving, canyon-echo vocals. As a standalone observe, it opens up an evocative and contemporary new lane for a band that was in want of 1 following its expansive 2022 double album Dragon New Heat Mountain I Consider in You.

However whereas this new aesthetic fits Lenker’s keening voice, it typically feels too slickly sedate throughout a complete album for a band whose allure has all the time been tied to its off-the-cuff intimacy. Now a trio following the departure of bassist Max Oleartchik, Big Thief doesn’t should be noisy to succeed: The spellbinding, pastoral quietude of 2019’s U.F.O.F. stays their finest work.

Double Infinity’s languid, pillowy palette muffles Big Thief’s spontaneous power. When Lenker chants on “Grandmother” that she’s “Gonna flip all of it into rock ‘n’ roll,” it feels unintentionally ironic. On the closing observe, “How May I Have Recognized,” the band does try and rekindle the chummy strum-around-the-campfire vibes of Dragon New Heat Mountain I Consider in You, however with its fussy strings, the tune finally ends up sounding hokier than something on that album.

Whereas Double Infinity’s manufacturing fashion could erect a brand new layer of detachment round Big Thief, Lenker’s songwriting is as skillful and weak as ever. Her songs run the emotional gamut from the playful “Proud of You” and the ecstatic “Phrases” to the brooding “No Concern” and the serene title observe. And as all the time, she doesn’t draw back from getting deeply private. On “Incomprehensible,” for instance, she invitations us to assist her stock “some stuff I left once I was a child” and begs, “Let me be bare alone with no person there.”

Lenker, then, isn’t placing up any partitions, a lot much less placing on any garments on “All Evening All Day,” during which she implores: “All evening, all day/I might go down on you/Hear you sing your pleasure.” Double Infinity’s preparations lamentably don’t match the rawness of Lenker’s lyrics, however so long as the content material of the songs stay this nakedly visceral, Big Thief will likely be superb it doesn’t matter what musical path it chooses to comply with.