Halfway through Big Thief’s sixth album, Adrianne Lenker reaches an early conclusion: “There is no time,” she sings on “No Fear.” The lead singer and guitarist is not referring to a lengthy to-do list, but rather suggesting that time — as a linear concept with a past, present and future — is nonsensical. It’s besides the point when it comes to matters of the heart; it’s “round like a lime,” she intones next. The lyric is a thread that runs throughout the larger fabric of “Double Infinity,” as Big Thief’s choice to efface time is not for the sake of ingenuity, but a way to find solace in immense heartache. Even as years pass and relationships end, the love once shared between two people endures; it’s eternal and unrelenting.
The album’s title refers to an endless unity once two forces come together. It’s a lofty feat to center an album on, but in just nine songs — compared to the band’s 20-track album “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You,” is an act of restraint — the folk-rockers stay grounded. For Big Thief, it’s an intuitive undertaking, given the trio of best friends and occasional spouses have been playing together for nearly a decade. The history only seems to have made them stronger.
Among the most gut-wrenching on the album is the closing track, “How Could I Have Known.” It recounts Lenker walking toward the Eiffel Tower in the rain, staring down the Seine. “It was some empty power / I could not explain,” she sings upon seeing the Pont des Arts, a bridge in Paris where couples hang padlocks and throw the keys into the Seine. The simple, open guitar chords and hollow, heavy percussive beats often feel as though the track was recorded inside a drum circle. At other times, it resembles a small choir crooning over a violin-aided melody. If “Double Infinity” is about the birdseye view over life’s instability, Lenker resolves to make it as clear as possible: “And they say the time’s the fourth dimension. / They say everything lives and dies,” she sings. “But our love will live forever / Though, today, we said goodbye.”
“Grandmother” is quite different, though, as it begins caught in a fog of synth and cuts to the middle of a strikingly vivid picture. “It’s been strange, dancing at the bar / Kissing in our car, standing in the stadium / Knowing soon there’ll be no bar / No car, no stadium,” Lenker sings. There’s an eerie calmness to Lenker’s voice as she sings of inevitable decay, presumed death and even the planet’s destruction. A few lines later, Lenker poses a question to ease the intensity of her memories: “It’s alright, everything that happened, happened / So what’s the use of holding?” Similar to the entire album, “Grandmother,” featuring the 82-year-old instrumentalist Laraaji on zither and vocals, feels somewhat improvised. With layered vocals and melting percussion, Big Thief creates one of their deepest textures yet. Pulling the tether between something wholly raw and entirely refined, new-age icon Laraaji releases audible bellows in between choruses, sounding like someone crying out in mourning.
If “Double Infinity” has a composition similar to Earth itself, its hot iron core would be the titular track. It witnesses Lenker at her peak poeticism, splicing the present with old memory. “In the arms of the one I love / Still seeing pictures of / Another from the future or the past,” she sings, her former and current romances living side-by-side in the same room, pushing against each other like two tectonic plates right before a slip. Lenker knows the inevitable result is an earthquake. So she hums a bit deeper, sticking her feet further into the mud, “At the bridge of two infinities,” between “What’s been lost and what lies waiting.”
Compared to their past works, “Double Infinity” feels less like it was recorded around a campfire and more like it was chaotically danced to on a massive patch of grass in the ’90s. It’s a little less country, a bit more psychedelic, jazz-infused and experimental compared to past Big Thief projects. Lyrically, the songs aren’t as overstuffed, such as on “Happy With You,” which embraces brevity through repetition: “I’m happy with you” and “Why do I need to explain myself?” The textures are denser, a vast collaboration of voices overlap — including backing vocals from Hannah Cohen, Alena Spanger and more.
But even more than that, it’s an album attempting to embody love in its immediate form — without trying to rationalize or control it — while simultaneously reckoning with how inexplicable, nebulous and painful the thing is. And just maybe, that means never quite reaching the end of the trail.
Contact Levi Langley at [email protected].
