Big Thief - Double Infinity
I bought Double Infinity by Big Thief, Near-Death Travel Services by Deadguy, and a used copy of Red Yellow Blue by Born Ruffians at Tunes in Hoboken with my sister (one of these albums is not like the others). A lot of reviews of Double Infinity will reference its well-received predecessor, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You. That album released during a period of my life where I was fully checked out of "mainstream indie", so Double Infinity is actually the first Big Thief album I've ever listened to.
Big Thief present themselves as a post-hippie throwback band, confident in their craft and comfortable in their niche. As someone who has been broadly skeptical of the ongoing Countrification of indie rock, I am pleased to hear some honest-to-god folk rock on this record. They get a little more psychedelic at points, there are plenty of obviously jammed passages, and the chords never get too crazy. Two of the songs, "No Fear" and particularly "Happy With You" are more or less repetitions of the same lines for the whole song, but the groove is so strong that I don't really mind it all that much. I get some Rachel Faro vibes here, some Bob Dylan of course, some Crazy Horse. Also, Laraaji's vocal feature on "Grandmother" oddly reminds me of the Indigenous Taiwanese singing that got sampled by 90s dance music.
Perhaps a comparison to Joni Mitchell might be in order as well, given the songwriting's focus on aging femininity in the world. "Incomprehensible" is the uplifting, groovy opener that opines on aging, and on relieving oneself of the disgust and fear thereof. "Grandmother" is barely about the titular woman, but moreso about taking all the experiences of life, the pain and pleasure, and "turn(ing) it all into rock & roll." The titular "Double Infinity" is "What's been lost and what lies waiting": an infinite amount of human experience has been forgotten, but it must be laid aside for the infinite amount of human experience to come. You can't have the future without the past, but future cannot come without the past passing on.
Love is the other big theme highlighted on the record. Love of a city, as in "Los Angeles". Love of another, as in "Happy With You". There's also oral-sex anthem "All Night All Day" ("All night, all day I could go down on you, hear you sing your pleasure/God is good, or whatever made the mouth to drink the treasure) which comes a bit out of nowhere. Tying both themes together is "How Could I Have Known", a melancholy number that slowly reveals itself to be about the end of a relationship. Lenker and Meek, a divorced in real life, harmonize as they sing about how "our love will live forever, though today we said goodbye".
The CD comes in a digisleeve with the same art on the front and back, which is a bit disappointing. The disc is also very minimal, black text on grassy green with a small band name, record label, tracklisting, and a nice scripted album title. The interior booklet is an absolute thumbprint magnet, and the dark blue and green text on black background is hard to read. This is probably a band that would rather I buy the vinyl record, after all. Just for making a big-market rock-ish record that still cares about things like theming and that isn't also a huge downer, Big Thief get plenty of love from me. Unlike some of my favorite albums, I wouldn't hesitate to share this with other people before I knew if they were the same type of fuckup I am. It's pleasant and artful and maybe not my favorite folksy indie record by a New York metro area band this decade, it's still good. I would have liked more thoughtful packaging, but the fact of the matter is that these songs make me smile. I like listening to them. Isn't that what matters?