Listening to Big Thief’s third album, UFOF (the second “F” standing for “friend”), it’s evident that it was informed more by where it was recorded – rural Washington state – than by the band’s Brooklyn home. These exquisitely rendered folk-based songs are for the most part hushed and gentle, while their elliptical lyrics reveal a fascination with nature and the great outdoors. Whether Adrianne Lenker is singing “Hound dogs crowing at the stars above/ Pigeons fall like snowflakes” or “See the luna moth cry/ Lime-green tears through the fruit bat’s eyes”, the fact her words are so infrequently rooted in contemporary urban life give the songs a timeless quality. Indeed, it does jar slightly when, on Betsy, she sings, “Drive into New York with me”.
The two standout moments are the delicately handpicked swell of Cattails, and Orange’s stripped-back despair and vulnerability, where Lenker comes across like a less-polarising Josephine Foster. But there is a richness of ideas throughout, from the opener Contact’s unexpectedly raucous coda and the lolloping, playful rhythm of Strange, to Terminal Paradise’s moving ruminations on death and Magic Dealer’s minimalist beauty. Full of subtle charm, it’s an album of deceptive depths in which to immerse yourself.
