Album review: Big Thief’s “Double Infinity” is psychedelic heart surgery

Photo collage by Easton Clark, Photo Editor

Taking the listener into the spaces we usually avoid in our day-to-day lives, Big Thief embraces the inevitable, honest and sour, turning these truths into fresh flowers hanged dry to last an eternity. 

Released Sept. 5, “Double Infinity” acts as an incantation that maybe everything will be okay. Three years after their last album, “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You,” which embraces the more folkier color in its Americana ornaments, their new album takes it a step further, evolving into a psychedelic folk.  

The indie band is composed of lead vocalist-guitarist and primary songwriter Adrianne Lenker, guitarist Buck Meek and drummer James Krivchenia. Founded in 2015 in Brooklyn, New York, this is the group’s first album as a trio, following the founding bassist Max Oleartchick leaving in 2024. 

This album shows yet another example of what Big Thief does best: turning vulnerability into sonic gold.  

Lenker’s voice, a delicate and raw mezzo-soprano, bleeds unforgettably through our heart of hearts. Backed with 10 invited musicians — including multi-instrumentalist specializing in zither and mbira, Laraaji — the creators improvised around the trio’s written songs, adding to the playful and siren-like feelings that the album evokes.   

An intentional ambiguity is present throughout the new sounds, taking the listener to a specific feeling rather than a concrete story — spiritual freedom. 

The album cover centers a chartreuse lime, its rinds interwoven around the fruit like the rings of Saturn. It’s a bold and electric choice, having previously used their own photography for their past albums, such as “Two Hands” or “U.F.O.F.” 

The first track on the album is “Incomprehensible,” a charmingly honest and lively reflection that walks a tightrope between spoken-word and song. 

We first follow the narrator and their lover on a wondrous journey after they miss their flight, a childlike reverie on enjoying the little things, like swimming in lakes or admiring flowers.   

Lenker’s lines like “I’m afraid of getting older, that’s what I’ve learned to say / Society has given me the words to think that way / The message spirals, don’t get saggy, don’t get gray / But the soft and lovely silvers are now falling on my shoulder,” embraces the gifts of time, reimagined through the eyes of a child. 

In the blink of an eye, the narrator goes from playing with their childhood toy, “Mr. Bear,” to celebrating their 33rd birthday. They ultimately choose to accept the inevitable rather than run from it. They say, “So let gravity be my sculptor, let the wind do my hair / Let me dance in front of people without a care / Let me be naked alone, with nobody there.” 

Following is “Words,” an in-between realm that manifests when spiraling in one’s head. Words are futile, yet they determine the framework of our very realities. This begs the question: are we in control of words? Or are words in control of us?     

The narrator says, “Words are tired and tense / Words don’t make sense” followed by “It takes so much time / To feel alive.” Letting go of constraints we are subconsciously aware of is the only way to obtain a level of thinking that is genuine — the only way to feel alive. 

Big Thief released a music video for this track, directed by Lenker’s brother, Noah Lenker. This is their first music video since 2017’s “Mythological Beauty.” Featured are scenes of cosmic night swims under a full moon, hands-free bike rides, and, most notably, magic. Absurdly giant pencils are poofed into flames and turned into a sword, machete, then drumsticks. Lenker has afternoon tea with herself, perhaps her subconscious. But this isn’t any tea, it’s alphabet soup with the word “yeehaw” spelled out in noodles.

It’s a goofy and whimsical depiction that at first seems as though the listener is at a party full of hippies and is the only sober one. However, this reaction is intentional, a statement that the limits of language are simply absurd. When you can’t articulate your emotions, there's frustration.  Lenker encourages the listener to transcend words.  

Next, “Los Angeles.” A sweet tune opening with sounds of laughter, acting as a melody backed with strumming guitar. The song encapsulates the strong connection one can have with another, whether it be platonic or romantic. It’s a rare sensation, a soul tie, that surpasses the gaps of disconnection and distance.   

Lyrics such as “I’ll follow you forever / Even without looking / You call, we come together / Even without speaking / You sang for me,” touches on the lingering energy that can ring throughout two peoples’ lives. It is a once in a lifetime connection, a true best friend, a true soulmate that surpasses limits, like the messages Big Thief describes in “Words”. 

“All Night All Day” builds more on this trust in a spiritual kind of love. With mystical synthesizers and running key melodies, the listener enters into a trance. 

“Swallow poison, swallow sugar / Sometimes they taste the same / But I know your love is neither / And love is just a name.” 

Poison and sugar both have an intoxicating effect, and Big Thief acknowledges it’s good to know the difference when someone is good or bad for you. However, there is a third option: neither. This is the kind of love built on an energetic trust, upbeat drums and a catchy rhythm making this all the more tempting to open up to. 

“Double Infinity” is an instrumental-heavy reverie for a time that could have been. Returning themes of the inevitability of aging and enjoying your time while you’re here resurface — but also something different. 

There is a melancholic tug at the cuffs of the listener’s jeans, enticing them to turn around from looking behind them, to live in the present. This song tackles feeling your emotions in the moment, rather than dwelling on them, and in doing so, living in the past. 

Lyrics like “In the arms of the one I love / Still seeing pictures of / Another from the future or the past / What’s lost or waiting? / Troubled mind let me rest” and “Longing to go back again / To be someone I’ve never been / I echo and I seek to win / Mourning and celebrating,” express a desperation and distress for being in a purgatorial state of mind. 

Butterflies and the swaying wildflowers are what break the narrator out of the “crystal cage of aging.” One must allow the good and the evil, the past and the present, and the world around them to coexist. 

“No Fear” is a repetitive journey in its recurring phrasing, “There is no fear / Mind so clear, mind so free / There is no time / Round like a lime.” Led by a bass melody, building with the drums and a singing guitar in the distance, Lenker’s lyrics engrain a mantra in the listener’s ears. 

A haunting and experimental cycle is created as Lenker and back up vocalist, Alena Spanger, refute the very rules of existence. They chant, “No table, no chair, no country.”  

“Grandmother (feat. Laraaji)” is one of my personal favorites. It’s a mystical calling to the narrator’s mother and grandmother, wanting to know their family on a deeper level that they didn’t get the chance to. Lyrics like “Knowing soon there’ll be no bar, no car, no stadium / Grandmother, sleep tight / Sleep loose,” shift the album’s upbeat hope to an existential framework. 

The lyrics “So what’s the use of holding? It’s unfolding / We’re all insane / We are all made of love / We are all made of pain / Gonna turn it all into rock and roll,” show how the narrator processes such epiphanies and realizations. 

“Happy with You” compliments this sentiment, and uses a hardcore repetition in its lyrics, repeating lines over and over: “Happy with you / Poison shame,” and an occasional interruption of the phrase, “Why do I need to explain myself?”

Difficult to interpret a meaning breaking the depth of such phrases, one may gather that the alternating lyrics represent the back and forth indecision one may feel in a relationship. Never coming to a full conclusion, Big Thief yet again chooses to not tell a lush narrative and instead shares a specific sentiment.  

Ending the album is “How Could I Have Known,” a sunset, a goodbye, a farewell to a memory or a time. It is a conclusion of learned mistakes and how to grow. Lyrics “How could I have known / In that moment / What we’d turn into?” explore the feelings we all experience when encountering something we haven’t before. 

This song wraps up the album’s themes, leaving the listener on a note that there is always room to learn in every experience, and to treasure the moments that make us who we are, including the whimsy and wonder, before the inevitable knocks at our door. The line “They say everything lives and dies / But our love will live forever,” is a true promise that energy will surpass any fate. 

Big Thief is set to tour late 2025 into 2026. 

The album is a new chapter in their ever-evolving music as Big Thief continues to embrace emotional depth as experiential. Be sure to catch them live, and you’ll return with a new heart, stitched together again.