American indie rock band Big Thief demonstrates on its fifth album, “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You,” that crafting a truly great album does not require a signature sound. It released on Feb. 11, 2022, to critical acclaim. Through its 80 minutes, the album draws from Big Thief’s familiar folk rock territory, but also experiments with electronic beats, celestial synthesizers and countrified fiddles to create the band’s first masterpiece.
The story of the album’s wide musical vocabulary stems from how the band recorded it. At the suggestion of drummer and producer James Krivchenia, the band recorded at four different studios in rural New York, California, Arizona and Colorado, bringing a specific sonic plan to each. The 20 tracks reflect their fragmented recording through four main sounds: sparkly folk rock, sparse folk, loose country and claustrophobic electronica.
“Change” opens the album, and it is a standard Big Thief song with ‘70s soft rock influence. It is a beautiful statement in which lead singer and songwriter Adrianne Lenker points out how nature changes to explain why she is not afraid to die.
Next is the soaring “Time Escaping,” replete with synthesizers and an electronic beat to pair with electric guitars. If this song suggested the album would be an altogether different experience from the four albums before it, “Spud Infinity” hollers it from the rooftops as it opens with a twirling fiddle and the boing of a jaw harp.
“Spud Infinity,” “Red Moon” and “Certainty” stand out for their country charm and Lenker’s faux-Southern inflection (“What’s it gonna tayeeeeeek?” she croons on “Spud Infinity”). With lyrics that explore the price of a crust of garlic bread and shout out Lenker’s grandmother, these songs might come off as jokes, but the juxtaposition of these lyrics with truly existential musings (“Ash to ask and dust to dusk / A dime a dozen, aren’t we just?”) and tight instrumental tracks reveal these songs are serious and playful in equal measure.
The title track is as otherworldly as its name. Among this track’s eclectic instrumentation are a pedal steel guitar, a recorder, bells and icicles. The song recalls The Beatles’ psychedelic Indian-influenced master works — it’s a worthy successor of “Strawberry Fields Forever” in all its dreamy bliss.
“Sparrow” is the first of the delicate, homespun folk tracks on the album. It reaches for biblical heights and rhymes four lines with the word “apple.”
“Dried Roses,” knitted simply with acoustic guitar and fiddle, ends each quatrain with the title. The lyrics elegantly paint a quarantine-esque setting with details anyone who has lived through the pandemic will recognize: bed unmade, walking sleepily, steeping the black coffee.
“Promise is a Pendulum,” my favorite song on the album, tells the story of a person looking to nature after losing someone important. They find themselves overwhelmed with the world’s vast beauty and admit they are unable to build the winter or a meteor shower, just as they are unable to rebuild the love they lost.
“Little Things” is a shining folk rock track that repossesses The Byrds’ jangly guitars, the instruments that launched the genre. “Little Things” and fellow mid-tempo tracks “No Reason” and “12,000 Lines” are the album’s most “Big Thief” songs. They are especially reminiscent of “Capacity,” highlight “Haley,” and “Two Hands” track “Forgotten Eyes,” but you can detect hints of the album’s newfound country influence in the close harmonies.
The second side of the album ends with “Heavy Bend,” “Flower of Blood” and “Blurred View,” which open a new face to Big Thief’s range. “Heavy Bend” passes quickly and pairs electronic drums and synthesizers with an acoustic guitar. “Flower of Blood” is a powerful fusion of electronic and industrial rock, with thundering synthesizers and computer textures creating a haunting atmosphere. “Blurred View” is a cosmic, groovy trip-hop lullaby propelled by Max Oleartchik’s thudding fretless bass.
“Wake Me Up to Drive” on the third side of the album is my least favorite song, but it attempts an unique blend of country guitar with a drum machine and heavily echoed, deadpan vocals.
The final four songs are a musical summary of the album: “Simulation Swarm” is a smooth folk rock track with murmured and swirling vocals, “Love Love Love” surges with wailing and distorted guitar and “The Only Place” is a fingerpicked acoustic song that muses about love at the end of the world. Final track “Blue Lightning” sees Lenker pick up her country accent for one last dance. Every one of these songs is as good as anything else on the album, and they flow together perfectly.
Something interesting happens at the end of the album that toys with conventional wisdom. In the final seconds of “Blue Lightning,” one of the band members asks the group, “What should we do now?” This seems like a clear way to signal the end of an album, but the song this line ends does not have the dramatic bravado of most album closers; instead, it is a simple country tune punctuated with honky-tonk guitar.
The song’s most poignant line — “Yeah, I wanna live forever ‘til I die” — is a clear reference to the album opener “Change.” By ending the album with “Blue Lightning” instead of “The Only Place,” a much more conventional candidate for the last track, Big Thief crafts a cyclical experience that demands to begin again the moment it ends.
Collectively, the final run of four songs is the best on the album. The juxtaposition of genres is a strength rather than a weakness because their placement together reveals how they were really influencing one another all along.
This is not an album of four genres — it is an album of Big Thief songs. It aspires to lofty ambitions, and without a truly weak track and a genius interweaving of lyrical and musical themes through its 20 songs, “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You” achieves these ambitions and stands as Big Thief’s first truly incredible project.
Edited by Lucy Valeski, lvaleski@themaneater.com