Big Thief - Masterpiece

Pitchfork 77

Putting aside Mumford and Sons’ attempts to taint the term “folk rock,” there’s no shortage of strong singer-songwriters putting their own spin on the genre these days, from Angel Olsen to Father John Misty to Sharon Van Etten to Kevin Morby. As familiar as it is, music like this can be deceptively tricky to do right; it requires close attention to storytelling and lyrical economy as well as the ability to not completely overpower these words in pursuit of the occasional rock-out. On their debut Masterpiece, Brooklyn’s Big Thief hits the balance with ease and aplomb.

Singer-songwriter Adrianne Lenker’s pens evocative scenes of people and places, while the band shifts nimbly between lo-fi acoustic and throwback rock hooks, keeping everything noisy and tuneful. They do not reinvent the form and they probably won't be the band to break it, but Lenker has a striking voice and a way with turns of phrase—she is a clear star. She's released albums before—one solo and two proto-Big Thief collections with her main collaborator, guitarist Buck Meek, under the moniker Buck and Anne—but on Masterpiece, the songs sound cherry-picked over a lifetime of writing, the stories carefully compiled.

Masterpiece is a scrapbook of sorts, so it makes sense that the name songs—“Paul,” “Lorraine,” “Randy”—tend to be the strongest. "Paul" twinkles gorgeously through a wistful, dreamy ache of guitars as Lenker recounts a love that could have been if she hadn't been so practical, but "Lorraine" is the kind of scene worth replaying in your mind every night just before dozing off. Atop a lightly strummed acoustic melody, Lenker describes an encounter that under another's less tender eye would seem dirty. But Lenker—seemingly harmonizing with herself—captures the magic of spontaneous attraction, the way some lovers can draw you in through just about anything.

Compared to her stripped-down, pre-Big Thief work—where she sounds quieter, sweeter, slightly twangier at times—Lenker sings with more heft here, prodded by the big sound the band makes when it kicks in behind her. But even when the music veers towards feedback and solos, when it seamlessly shifts tempos and directions on a dime, Lenker’s voice remains the guiding force. On standout "Real Love,” the band alternates between sparse riffs and bright flourishes of guitar reverb as Lenker likens love to all the awful things—a heart attack, domestic abuse, blackened lungs. She connects it to childhood—how your parents' example of love can screw you up—and it’s a heavy realization that manifests into Masterpiece’s rawest bit of feedback.

What doesn’t work as much are the attempts to make Masterpiece feel overly homemade. The brief opening song, “Little Arrow,” is in a decidedly lower fidelity than the rest of the album, which can be charming but in this case detracts from how vivid the full band sounds. At the end of “Interstate," there’s a field recording of a baby repeating the same phrase about liking trucks. These touches to the scrapbook feel like tacked-on reminders of an earlier sound. Listening to Lenker’s early work, where she is definitely more of a folk singer, I’m reminded of a line from Masterpiece’s title track: “There's only so much letting go you can ask someone to do.”