Reviewed for The Wall Street Journal

by Mark Richardson
Feb. 7, 2022

Big Thief leader Adrianne Lenker is seemingly writing new songs as fast as she can record them. We last heard from her country-rock band on record in 2019, when it released a pair of exceptional albums, “U.F.O.F .” and “Two Hands, ” just a few months apart. During that creative burst, she and the group earned three Grammy nominations and spots high on many critics’ year-end lists, and they launched a tour through the U.S. and Europe that would be halted by the Covid-19 pandemic. But Ms. Lenker is also a solo artist, and she released two albums that fall, “Songs” and “Instrumentals,” whose titles describe the content. About 15 months later, Big Thief returns with “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You” (4AD), its fifth record, out Friday. This double album comprises 20 songs culled from what is said to be a batch of about 45.

“Dragon” is a double album like the Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main St.” or Prince’s “Sign o’ the Times,” in that it jumps between styles and tries a little of everything. This was very much by design. The band’s drummer, James Krivchenia, produced the record, but he envisioned it as patchwork—the band recorded in five separate studios with four different engineers, and the group entered each session with specific sonic touchstones in mind. This bouncing between settings sometimes makes for jarring transitions, but it’s an album designed as a jagged self-portrait where not all the pieces fit together. It’s not perfect, and it doesn’t try to be.

Ms. Lenker sings with limited range and great expressivity; her voice quivers and shakes, and when it jumps up an octave it almost sounds like a yodel, but she’s especially good at singing quietly, as if she had just been passed a guitar while sitting near an open fire. And Big Thief is an unusual band—because while Ms. Lenker’s voice and songs are the principal attraction, its method, as evinced by Mr. Krivchenia’s conception for this LP, is highly collaborative. At times the record is disarmingly astute in its folky arrangements, while elsewhere the group stretches out and jams. Each player has a clear instrumental identity, and the interactions among them contribute as much as Ms. Lenker’s poetic turns of phrase.

The record’s opening triptych stakes out its aesthetic boundaries. The first track,“Change,” is a plain-spoken lament about a simple truth—you can’t freeze time, so life is an exercise in constantly letting go, which means sometimes you have to release your grip on what matters most. Ms. Lenker sings, “Could I set everything free / When I watch you holding her the way you once held me?” The following “Time Escaping” builds on the first song thematically, but comes from a different sonic universe. It’s engineered by Shawn Everett (The War on Drugs, Kacey Musgraves), who captures several of the jammier songs here. It brings to mind the Grateful Dead circa 1974, when Jerry Garcia’s guitar might sound like a steel drum or kalimba, embodying melody and rhythm simultaneously.

And then comes “Spud Infinity,” engineered by Scott McMicken, a loose and rambling country number with a jaw harp and fiddle that sounds as if it were recorded in a room with a dirt floor. Here and elsewhere on the record, you can hear Ms. Lenker challenging herself to write something simple, loose and funny instead of her more typically abstract and impressionist lyrics. In interviews, she has mentioned admiration for songwriter John Prine, and you can find echoes of his careful assemblages throughout “Dragon,” on tunes where laughter and tears exist in perfect balance.

This influence crops up later on “Red Moon,” a cousin to “Spud Infinity,” also engineered by Mr. McMicken. It’s another barn-dance jig complete with fiddle, and at one point Ms. Lenker seems to be mentioning a random character named Diane Lee before bursting out with “That’s my grandma!” Later in the song, like Prine, she crafts homey images of everyday details and imbues them with magic. “Radio singin’ from the corner of the kitchen / I’ve got the oven on / I got the onions wishin’ they hadn’t made me cry.”

As the lengthy album unfolds, musical and lyrical ideas disappear and then return a few songs later. “Little Things,” with Mr. Everett engineering, has a brilliant angular solo from guitarist Buck Meek that carries a large amount of its emotional content, and it forms a clear stylistic link to similarly guitar-heavy “Time Escaping.” “Love Love Love,” recorded by Dom Monks (Nick Cave, Laura Marling), has the distorted oblong rumble of Neil Young and Crazy Horse, a regular touchstone for the band.

Ms. Lenker is a sturdy melodist who is occasionally great. When she de-emphasizes the catchy tune, her music suffers a little. A song like “Sparrow,” a dirge based on a basic pattern of ascending and descending notes, can be a little dull if you’re not already steeped in the music of Big Thief. It’s one of a handful of tracks where good ideas are fused to melodies that don’t quite stay in your mind. Still, not a bad ratio given the record’s length.

As the album winds down, “The Only Place” captures the record’s tension between existential yearning and the essential power of human connection. “When all material scatters / And ashes amplify / The only place that matters / Is by your side,” Ms. Lenker sings. When I reviewed Big Thief’s “Two Hands” in 2019, I mentioned that it carried the excitement of a creative talent hitting a peak. “Dragon” is somehow even better, as her songwriting grows richer and the band’s playing is even more telepathic.