Album of the Week: Big Thief – Double Infinity

The last we heard from American indie-rock band Big Thief was in 2023, with their magnificent, sprawling fifth album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You voted Tower Records staff’s favourite album that year. This week, the band return with their eagerly anticipated new record Double Infinity.

Between this album and its predecessor, Big Thief, once a quartet, have slimmed down to three core members: vocalist-guitarist Adrianne Lenker, guitarist Buck Meek, and drummer James Krivchenia, following the departure of bassist Max Oleartchik. The album was recorded over three weeks at New York City’s Power Station studios with producer Dom Monks. Here, the trio were joined by an array of additional musicians, including backing vocalists, Mikel Patrick Avery of avant-garde jazz group Natural Information Society, and ambient/new-age pioneer Laraaji.

The wait between its announcement and release included the singles Incomprehensible, All Night All Day, Los Angeles, and Grandmother, each excellent on their own, and functioning even stronger as part of an exquisitely sequenced album brimming with perfectly cut gems. Yes, Big Thief have done it again, Double Infinity is a career highlight in a catalogue already filled with them.

The eclectic experimentalism of its ambitious predecessor pays huge dividends here, resulting in a more concise, yet no less explorative, nine-track collection. To me at least the band recall Radiohead, not in sound, but in their creative approach, their reach, and the meticulous care to make every track feel definitive. If Dragon New Warm Mountain was their Kid A/Amnesiac, then Double Infinity is their In Rainbows. It offers an astute refinement of their sound, producing songs full of emotion, nuance, and life, with an optimum amount of detail and intrigue to make the record endlessly rewarding and re-playable.

Incomprehensible is a fantastic opener. Adrianne Lenker’s verses are restless whirlwinds of lyricism, carried by steady, rolling folk-rock and lifted by a glorious chorus refrain of “incomprehensible, let me be, incomprehensible”, a wish for freedom matched by the song’s gentle emotional release. Words follows, raising the energy with chiming, melodic guitars and delayed textures, Lenker’s vocals caressing a luminous, hazy melody, before Buck Meek’s unexpected guitar solo threatens to steal the spotlight.

Where past Big Thief records, such as the superb U.F.O.F. (2019), leaned towards the melancholic, for large parts, Double Infinity radiates joy. It’s inescapable on the folk-rock-meets-trip-hop rhythm of the tender romanticism of All Night All Day, the free-form, stream-of-consciousness road-trip of Los Angeles, and on the rock n’ roll spiritual Grandmother, a collaboration with Laraaji. His hypnotic, wordless chants, credited as intuitive singing, merge with Lenker’s youthful howl with distinct effect, it’s a bold, leftfield moment that pays off beautifully. Unbridled, almost childlike joy abounds too on the buoyant, bouncing Happy With You.

When the mood does turn more contemplative, the band shine just as bright on tracks that have, over the last decade, become their bread and butter. The title track delivers one of Lenker’s most affecting melodies, here recalling PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake, filled with heart, sorrow, and resilience. With last year’s excellent solo album Bright Future, another solo release in 2020, and now six albums in nine years with Big Thief, Double Infinity further cements Lenker as a once-in-a-generation talent.

The modestly triumphant closer How Could I Have Known epitomises the record’s serene, emotional heart. Double Infinity is a modern folk-rock album as vital and connective as any in recent memory, one that keeps the roots of folk, country, and blues alive in their deepest human, and most intimate truth.

If you’re already a fan of Big Thief, owning Double Infinity is an absolute no brainer. If you’re new to them, it’s the perfect entry point. Brilliant, brilliant stuff, but then, at this stage would we really expect anything less?

Big Thief – Double Infinity is OUT NOW on Green Vinyl, Black Vinyl, CD & Cassette