BIG THIEF - Double Infinity

It's hard to imagine a more cohesive band than Big Thief, hard to think of a quartet that more than any other has shown a cohesion that seemed unshakeable. But even the most beautiful stories eventually reach their conclusion, and so last summer came the news that bassist Max Oleartchik had left the band, for personal reasons that were never made clear. What had seemed like a perfect square lost one of its sides, along with the synergies that had woven together some of the most significant chapters in new American folk-rock. No matter: during the snowy New York winter the remaining trio called in a collective of musicians (among them Hannah Cohen, June McDoom, and above all the legendary Laraaji), and working from already half-developed sketches, played nine hours a day for three weeks, devising arrangements and sonic textures in a process of continuous transformation. "Double Infinity" documents that development, sacrificing the song form without much ceremony while at the same time stitching together a jam session with an unmistakably transcendent pull, where meanings play with words along that thin ridge separating literalness from elusiveness. Because there's more than one road to rock'n'roll.

There's a lot of courage in the way Adrianne Lenker and co. have swept away such an idiosyncratic, colorful approach to songwriting in favor of a game of improvisation and experimentation that undeniably bears the mark of the many musicians brought in to contribute. A deliberate loss of control, with all the risks that entails: when the chemistry pays off, the collective delivers moments of extraordinary emotional engagement, whether freely reconnecting reflections and memories (the dreamlike digressions of "Incomprehensible", built over a brilliant synth opening) or finely rendering the contradictions of attraction (the subtle soulful shades of "All Day All Night"). When instead the game leans toward a greater, deliberate repetitiveness, the balance doesn't always land. That's evident in the surprising wordiness of the title track's structure, which lacks the breathing room needed to elevate its powerful message of beauty and love. And the closing of "Grandmother", a substantial meditation on the transience of things, leans too hard on the repeated "gonna turn into rock and roll" in its final two minutes, partly flattening its sense of mystery and longing.

In the surprising dub construction of dub-infused "No Fear", Big Thief hit on the best version of this new direction, once again built around a text intoned like a mantra, preceded by an endless bassline that seems reluctant to ever make room for Lenker's voice. When it finally enters, obsessively repeating its spell, her singing opens up into an unexpected clarity. Laraaji's warm presence, which runs through several moments of the album with his unmistakable spiritual aura, lends the band's sound a new circularity, made of chimes, drones and synthetic openings that seem to stretch time itself. The same pattern, in an even more essential form, takes shape in "Happy With You", where the carefree groove and the chorus joining Lenker in unison bring a luminous joy, more immediate and contagious than the solemnity of the previous track.

There are, however, moments where the pattern changes radically and the lyrics unfold in a more traditional form. One example is, ironically, the track titled "No Words", where the band prefers to play with instrumental density, with a rough, cutting guitar solo that slices through the carefully crafted arrangement. It's probably the catchiest track on the album. The closing "How Could I Have Known" instead brings the group back to more familiar, intimate, close-knit territory, with sounds that recall their last record, perfect for sharing around a fire that lights up faces and strengthens bonds.

Within these warm flames one can sense ideas still searching for their full form, intuitions waiting to fully ignite. After all, Big Thief had accustomed us to an extremely high level of inspiration, and perhaps precisely for that reason some choices on "Double Infinity" feel less fully realized, closer to an open workshop than a finished work. What remains, then, is the sense of an evolution in progress, of a band that hasn't lost its inspiration and keeps searching for new forms to express it, slowly sketching the outlines of something still taking shape.

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08/09/2025