Indie folk band Big Thief released its sixth studio album, “Double Infinity,” on Friday, Sept. 5, resonating with hopeless romantics and nostalgia chasers. The nine-track album winds from slow-paced ballads to upbeat psychedelic folk songs that pack a punch with their sentimental lyricism.
Since 2015, Big Thief has released dreamy, melodic music. This is Big Thief’s first project as a trio with lead singer and guitarist Adrianne Lenker, guitarist Buck Meer and drummer James Krivchenia. Founding bassist Max Oleartchik left the band in 2024 for interpersonal reasons.
The album was recorded in winter of 2024 in nine-hour sessions over three weeks in New York. The band collaborated with ten musicians, including new-age artist Laraaji — who is featured in the song “Grandmother.”
The tracks are full of nostalgic ruminations, grappling with the effect of time on the body and the relationship between the body and earth. Narrative storytelling and landscape imagery mixed with Lenker’s soft, distinct voice creates a warm and comfortable ambience.
My favorite song on the album is the first track, “Incomprehensible,” which sets the stage for the album’s themes of love, grief, memory and aging. The intimate lyrics reminisce on childhood and growing older.
The lyrics, “In two days, it’s my birthday, and I’ll be thirty three / That doesn’t really matter next to eternity,” and “My mother and my grandma, my great-grandmother, too / Wrinkle like the river, sweeten like the dew,” swim against societal expectations that women fear aging. Lenker hopefully embraces it, pointing to the women in her life as graceful inspiration.
“Words” has upbeat instrumentals with relatable lines about miscommunication with a partner. The repeated refrain of “Words are tired and tense / Words don’t make sense / Words are feathered and light / Words won’t make it right,” backed by chaotic yet controlled instrumentals encapsulates the complexity of communication.
The third track “Los Angeles” has a similar tone to “Incomprehensible” but spins the themes into a metaphysical meditation on the passage of time. The song recalls joyful reunions and passing time with the lyrics, “Like a soldier at the gate in tears / Feels like it’s been 10 years, has it only been two years?”
“All Night All Day” celebrates women’s bodies and challenges notions of shame regarding female sexuality with a light, upbeat tempo. The song then transitions to the slower title track “Double Infinity,” which is unapologetically a love song. Aging returns as the main theme, grounding it to the person you love and taking the fear away.
The sixth track, “No Fear,” is the longest on the album at seven minutes. The whole song is a repetition of the same lyrics over psychedelic, lullaby-like instrumentals. The lyrics “There is no time, round like a lime, destiny,” is a reference to the album’s cover and overarching themes.
“Grandmother” is a slower song that the whole band wrote together, honoring the fleetingness of love. The band picked up their pace with the song “Happy With You,” which is similar in repetition to “No Fear.” The song repeats “Happy with you / Poison shame,” reflecting on the cycles of memory and relationships.
The final song, “How Could I Have Known,” looks at the past and contemplates a current relationship, wrapping up the album’s main points of considering the past and present through growth and love.
My two standouts from “Double Infinity” are “Incomprehensible” and “Words.” They offer a new, yet classic, Big Thief sound. While the album could sound slow on the first listen, I encourage listeners to revisit with the lyrics in mind.
Lenker’s narrative songwriting is easy to appreciate. She manages to create a negative space between the artist and listener, allowing emotions and nostalgia to fill the gap.
