An extended version of this review will appear on WOBC Blog. This article will be updated with a link when it’s posted.
Big Thief lead vocalist Adrianne Lenker’s latest record tells a doomed love story that will shatter your heart and haphazardly (but lovingly) paste it back together again and again.
The sparse opener “Real House” is built upon a minimalist piano instrumental sprinkled with whispery strings. Its simple, repetitive vocal melody captures a childlike desire for maternal affection. The confessional lyrics describe Lenker’s coming of age, including the first time she saw her mother cry — when the family dog died. This sets the stage for the loss to come in Lenker’s relationship while adding the depth of familial love to the album’s exploration of romantic love.
Interestingly, the bittersweet ending of the core love story comes directly after the opener. “Sadness as a Gift” works with a more extensive palette, adding backing vocals from Nick Hakim, Josefin Runsteen, and Mat Davidson, along with acoustic guitar and more prominent strings. Lenker accepts the end of her relationship while remaining open to the possibility that they could one day be on good terms at a distance in a satisfying conclusion to the narrative. Though the transition from “Real House” to “Sadness as a Gift” is seamless, it’s curious that Lenker chose to disrupt the narrative flow while maintaining the musical one.
Tracks 3-5 are the honeymoon phase: Lenker and her girlfriend cook meals together and float the possibility of getting married. The undercurrent of familial love returns — romantic love blurs into familial love at a certain point, a prominent theme in much of Lenker’s catalog. With sweet vocal melodies and tenderly plucked guitars, Lenker paints domestic, idyllic scenes that make the later heartbreak even more devastating.
“Vampire Empire” — a reimagining of a Big Thief fan favorite — is when things begin to fall apart. In some of Lenker’s most evocative, clever lyrics, she describes codependency between two people who fundamentally misunderstand each other:
You give me chills
I’ve had it with the drills
I am nothing, you are nothing, we are nothing with the pills
I’m empty till she fills
Alive until she kills
In her vampire empire I’m the fish and she’s my gills
Love becomes “evil” in “Evol,” another piano-driven track, and “Candleflame” sorrowfully acknowledges that the relationship is keeping both parties stagnant. Then, the melancholic tracks that follow highlight the irreconcilable rifts between the two despite how established their relationship is.
Wistfully, “Donut Seam” acts as a release of tension, where Lenker longs to make the most of the vestiges of their love before they separate. The emotional peak comes in “Ruined,” where Lenker utilizes her brilliant high range. Poignant backing piano chords and a haunting ambience evoke being alone in a large, dark room where the absence of another is acutely felt. While “Ruined” is an effective closer, it again leaves me wishing that the record ended with “Sadness as a Gift,” which concludes the narrative in a more emotionally satisfying way — but I might just be too much of a hopeless romantic to handle ending on such a desolate note.
Bright Future features stunning acoustic, Appalachian-inspired instrumentation, but it succeeds primarily on Lenker’s gift for storytelling. While I’d certainly miss the music itself, with the unique strength of Lenker’s writing, I wouldn’t mind if her next creative project was a novel.
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