Big Thief – Two Hands (CD)

Big Thief is known for the restrained power of their live performances, and that compelling energy is captured with a fierce resolve on every track of this album. They move along slowly, to intensify the overall impact of the music, keeping Adrianne Lenker's vocals up front in the mix. Some of the tunes here are longtime crowd favorites, recorded for the first time, and every one of them rings with a forceful intensity. The bruised heart at the core of Lenker's songs is magnified by the band's instrumental prowess. They play with a subtle intensity that's all tension and no release, adding an almost unbearable pressure to every arrangement. Lenker's acoustic strumming opens "Not" and her desperate vocal builds up to Buck Meek's wall of guitar noise—a growling, feedback-drenched excursion that's one of the album's most alarming musical moments. The singer/guitarist's apocalyptic vision and the band's measured tempos make every word bristle with foreboding. "Forgotten Eyes" is a mid-tempo prayer for protection, but the distorted guitar work and relentless, throbbing rhythms of James Krivchenia's drums and Max Oleartchik's bass suggest salvation is a long way off, if even attainable. The album closer, "Cut My Hair," may be the quietest song in the set, but Lenker's trembling voice gives it an ominous aura that's intensified by Krivchenia's crisp, understated work on the snare and Meek's reverb-drenched guitar as it produces thick clusters of chords that hang in the air like tolling funeral bells.

— dean, Relix

Two Hands, a completely new, fully-realized, 10-song album by Big Thief, will arrive just five months after their breakthrough U.F.O.F., one of the most acclaimed albums of 2019. In sharp contrast to the wet environment of the U.F.O.F. session, Two Hands had to be completely different— an album about the earth and the bones beneath it. The songs were recorded live with almost no overdubs. All but two songs feature entirely live vocal takes, leaving Adrianne’s voice suspended above the mix in dry air, raw and vulnerable as ever. Where U.F.O.F. layered mysterious sounds and effects for levitation, Two Hands grounds itself on dried-out, cracked desert dirt. Anybody who has borne witness to Big Thief in the wild will find songs they recognize here. Much of the album’s tracks (“The Toy”, “Those Girls”, “Shoulders”, “Not”, “Cut My Hair”) have been live staples for years. Two Hands has the songs that I’m the most proud of; I can imagine myself singing them when I’m old,” says singer/songwriter Adrianne Lenker. With raw power, intimacy, and honor, Two Hands folds itself gracefully into Big Thief’s impressive discography. This body of work grows deeper and more inspiring with each new album.

UPC: 191400018020
Label: 4ad
Release Date: 10.11.19
Format: CD