Double Infinity

After the stylistic sprawl of 2022’s <i>Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You</i>, Big Thief’s sixth album finds the group bringing their increasingly distinctive sound closer to the vest in a literal sense: <i>Double Infinity</i> is their first album as a proper trio, following the departure of bassist Max Oleartchik. As a result, these nine songs—woolly, warm and with frissons of electricity coursing through their veins—capture Big Thief in a state of ragged intimacy, every melodic turn and shift in instrumentation expanding and contracting like a pair of lungs. The rumbling drum fills and strummy framework of “Words” seemingly stretch for miles on end, while the nearly seven-minute “No Fear” carries a faint gothiness in its inky guitar lines that drip around Adrianne Lenker’s bruising vocals. More so than on any other Big Thief album to date, rock music is the name of the game here; even “Grandmother”, which features ambient legend Laraaji lending vocal incantations, bursts and blooms in a manner not unlike what was coming out of the 1970s Laurel Canyon scene. Wild-eyed and positively hot-blooded, <i>Double Infinity</i> is the work of a band that never stops evolving, even as they continue to sound singularly like themselves.