Consumer Guide Album

Big Thief: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You [4AD, 2022]
However impressive Adrienne Lenker's skill set--and if you don't think it's worth your time go away--Big Thief's fragility has always brushed a little too close to fey for those it didn't enrapture. But on this this 80-minute let-it-all-hang-out, a breakup album and a breakout album in one convenient package, such piddling macho talking points don't apply. With no loss of Lenker's haunting trademark delicacy, Big Thief is louder here, and rocks more in a clattering kind of way. Their guitars are virtuosic like none other. The good tunes even her best albums don't guarantee abound. So that's the music part. As for the lyrics, they're so outta sight I'm gonna quote too many just in case my fellow crits missed 'em. "I got the oven on, I got the onions wishing/They hadn't made me cry, filling the sink with dishes/Letting them air dry/Waiting for the wind's permission." "When I say heart, I mean finish/Last one there is a potato knish." "I am the sweaty sheets/The wet bed/The things she'll do and the things she's said." "Ash to ask and dust to dusk." "I wanna be the shoelace that you tie/I wanna live forever till I die." A