REVIEW: Big Thief Creates a Listening Journey Through ‘Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe You’
WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER - sometimes I would lie on the hardwood floor and listen to the energy pulsing through my house. I’d slow down my breathing and swear I could hear the electricity in the wires. Everything in the world felt connected. I think many people understand this feeling, whether it’s through meditation, spiritual practice, or music. And somehow, Big Thief almost perfectly encapsulates these notions on their latest double album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe You. It’s not that these ideas haven’t been fleshed out by philosophers and poets through and through. But it’s not very often that a band can breathe new life into them and connect them to our modern age with genre-bending indie-folk sounds.
On Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe You, Big Thief creates an energy that can be summed up best by collaborator Max Davidson as “mystical”. There are very few bands that can convey this energy like Big Thief. The process of getting from the songwriting to the actual creation of the record was a sort of spiritual hero’s journey in itself.
After a pandemic-induced hiatus, Adrienne Lenker, Buck Meek, Max Oleartchik and James Krivchenia, came together to write and record this project. They did so in four distinct sessions in four different parts of the country. The forests of upstate New York, the cool breezes of Topanga Canyon, the mountains of the Colorado Rockies, and the vastness of Tucson desserts.
They started in upstate New York at friend Sam Evian’s studio and home. The way that they talk about that session sounds like the plot of a summer coming-of-age film. When things weren’t feeling right, the band would create rituals to get the creativity flowing. Diving into freezing waters in the creek and recording songs surrounded by a ring of candles in power outages. These moments brought about tracks like “12,000 Lines” and “Certainty”. You can hear raw creativity in these tracks, and there's subtle urgency to get the thoughts out and turn them into sound.
It's easy to romanticize the creation of this record from those stories - you can picture the band transitioning through these creative spaces, all with backdrops of gorgeous American landscapes. These feelings shine through not only in the songwriting but in the off-kilter, folksy Americana production that weaves its way through this double album. There is literal magic that comes with creating a record like this out in nature. Not only does lead singer Adrienne Lenker’s songwriting touch on the perpetual entropy of the world, but some motifs grow into themes and hypnotic tracks.
This album doesn’t have an exact flow to it like some of their past works, which shows unique growth in the creation process and execution of these tracks. The beginning of the album features chaotic and unnatural drum sounds like the opening of "Time Escaping". These sounds are reminiscent of picking out a little instrument to strike in an elementary music class. There's nothing quite like the jangly jaw harp from "Spud Infinity" to remind you of childhood.
The album is tied together and flows through the hypnotic lyrics of lead singer Adrienne Lenker. Even on the most down-tempo tracks, Lenker’s lyricism is irresistible. Rhyming “apple” with “apple” throughout “Sparrow” creates a gripping sermon that retells and reinvigorates the story of Adam and Eve. Rather than being a silly rhyme.
Although the more conceptual tracks are intriguing to the ear, many of the standouts are more simplistic. They feature some classic elements that made us fall in love with Big Thief in the first place. While nothing can have quite as a heartwrenching impact as “Not” from Two Hands, the same feelings push through on “Flowers of Blood”. I may be more prone to enjoying tracks filled with thick and gritty guitars. But either way, “Flowers of Blood” stands out as a refreshing throwback in the middle of the album.
Lenker flawlessly weaves themes of human nature, interpersonal relationships, and the natural world together on this album. There are a couple of more “traditional” tracks that seem to speak on the subject of interpersonal relationships. These more classically indie songs scratch an itch that is absent from the first half of the album. Even if the order of the songs doesn't feel right at first, there’s no denying that everything feels connected through the lyrics.
Although there isn’t just one track that could be the show pony for this album, one that comes close is “Simulation Swarm”. Combining perpetual hypnotic elements with pleasing wordplay and a consistent build, it has a little bit of everything that has made this band great. Not to mention a killer guitar solo.
And then strip it back, Lenker hits just right with two standout acoustic tracks. These are the not-so-hidden gems of the record - “Promise is a Pendulum” lets Lenker’s vocals float above a cycling fingerpicking acoustic guitar. It’s tracks like these that connect Big Thief to the listener. Writing about things we all feel but can’t always say aloud. It thrives in simplicity. The second acoustic track, “The Only Place,” asks those existential questions we struggle with from time to time in a more upbeat vibe. "What if all the worlds in space/ Would melt into one single place/ And intertwine the human race?" Lenker asks us. Both tracks bring the familiarity you may be looking for when listening to a Big Thief record.
Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe You is an album that requires time and attention. After a while, you may let it float in the background, but don’t disregard the layers presented by the intertwining of glorious lyricism and intriguing production choices. At first glance, the childish Americana may feel jarring, but it’s all part of the journey that this record creates. Not only did it bring the band together and allow them to explore four corners of the country, it flawlessly connects to the wandering questions of the avid listener. Big Theif truly went out and practiced magic to create Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe You.
Be sure to listen to Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe You out everywhere now.
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