Big Thief steal the top spot with ‘Not’

4 stars

I recently discovered a a new personalized playlist Spotify creates called “On Repeat”. As the name suggests, this contains the 30 songs you’ve been playing most over the last 30 days.

While this initially served as a slightly unnerving reminder of the reams of data I willingly give to big tech, hopefully my current Springsteen love in doesn’t lead to suggested ads for Levis’ popping up, it also confirmed to me how much I love the song ‘Not’.

‘Not’ is the lead single from Big Thief’s new album Two Hands, and it’s been stubbornly at the top of my playlist for the last month. One of the band’s staples in live sets, they’ve finally put down a definitive hard-edged recording.

The first half of the track finds lead singer, and songwriter, Adrianne Lenker at her best: brutally poetic, “Not the meat of your thigh/ Nor your spine tattoo/ Nor the shimmery eye” she shudders, perhaps alluding to a pain more spiritual than corporeal. Lenker’s voice follows a crescendo of rage, moving from a quiver to an impassioned howl by the midpoint of the song, at which point she unleashes an epic squalling guitar solo that perfectly carries the energy of her vocal performance to the end of the song, an end you never really want to come.

‘Not’ is unlike any other song on Two Hands, the second album released by the band this year after UFOF dropped in May. Most of the album eschews the coarser instrumentation of ‘Not’ for a simpler, folkier sound which acts more as a platform for Lenker’s lyrics.

The title track, ‘Two Hands’ is a great example of this. Lenker’s voice hovers over the track, unpicking the breakdown of a relationship: “And the more that we try/ To figure through the answers/ to repeat ourselves/ to deny, deny”, while in between chorus and verse a wispy, electric squeal accompanies the high pitched guitar arpeggio. All of this gives the track a rather ethereal feel, an impermanence echoing perhaps the fleeting nature of this relationship for Lenker.

Elsewhere in the album Lenker also broaches broader topics, from homelessness and belonging in the earnest ‘Forgotten Eyes’, to the gun crisis in the more plaintive track ‘The Toy’.

Its these quietly raw and empathetic songs that heighten the impact of ‘Not’, and the similarly abrasive ‘Shoulders’, creating the impression that Big Thief are totally in control of where they want to go as a band, what they want to explore and how they want to explore it. I expect ‘Not’ will sit at the top of my “On Repeat” for a while yet...