Album Review: Big Thief Show The “Capacity” Of A Human Spirit To Break And Heal
Bands like Big Thief live and breathe according to the vocals/ gems of its lead singer. In their new album, Capacity, Adrianne Lenker has a voice that is solely hers. No one can copy its synthesis of fragility and strength. To hear her is like, literally, peering down unto the well of your soul, in which the pennies of your wishes and the rain from your bad days have gathered to remind you the highs and lows of feeling.
Lenker has a voice that makes emotionality into art, which is why Big Thief’s Capacity is so tragically masterful. The album is filled with dark themes/ scenarios that shatter a human being’s core spirt like “Shark Smile”; where a pair of lover’s are torn from each other in a deadly car crash. Big Thief do not cower from basing their lyrics on the situation that can spiritually destroy a human being but also rebirth them. In “Mary” you have a soul that broken by the weight of harsh realities, but in “Haley” you have the hope of a soul overcoming them. Thus, two protagonists presented like Odyssean leads running through lilli fields. Lyrically, Big Thief are poets, and Capacity is a sweet record of tales on human turmoil and triumph. Each track, from “Watering” to “Black Diamonds” might as well be mini-novels being read by Lenker’s kind, lulling voice. She is beyond sounding “sweet” in vocals, and instead aims for the maturity and tenderness of woman with enough wisdom and heart to view life. She simply sounds like a sage who emanates her songs for the warnings and well-wishes they can offer listeners, which explains why the album is one to sit down and LISTEN. Capacity is not just a record to play, but one to observe.
From “Mythological Beauty” to “Pretty Things”, Big Thief are not your “radio” band. They are the pack of musicians you, personally, scope out when you want music that turns the mind up rather than out. Instrumentally, they vary between wanderingly, sullen guitar melodies like in “Coma”, and drum kick-taps that pat rhythm as if it had a back like in “Objects”. They never reach for a gut-busting tune or one to make you leap in body motion, but, again, with themes on life-altering occurrences, they do not need to make you dance. They need to make you envision, which they do. For More Information On Big Thief And To Buy Capacity On June 9 Click Here.
