The heart of Big Thief's music is always Lenker's vulnerable, down-home warble, and intimate, pastoral lyricism. Although they began as a rangy, poetically hard-bitten guitar band on their 2016 debut Masterpiece, the band has since accomplished the neat trick of becoming both more rootsy and more cosmic, earthier but somehow less earthbound, which may appeal to listeners who enjoy the work of Bright Eyes and Jenny Lewis by drawing inspiration from the strange and old America.
U.F.O.F. and Two Hands, two albums released by the band six months apart in 2019, represent a spectacular creative apex. It's possible that Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You might have benefitted from a similar release schedule, but as the questionable title implies, a surplus of whimsical discovery is part of the objective here.
You can feel the reckless, willing-to-try-anything ambition permeating the whole place. The heartwarming and jovially titled "Spud Infinity" pauses for a ridiculously extended Jew's-harp jam. The jangle-core "No Reason" features a bell-booted flute solo and is almost too nice to listen to. The title tune gradually comes into focus, like a magical vision, thanks to the way Lenker's ethereal murmurs are reflected through webs of ghostly acoustic strumming. With brackish guitar static and constantly tumbling drumming, "Little Things" saunters athletically for over six minutes as Lenker sings of falling madly in love in New York City.
The Big Thief band loves the antiquated, the fantastic, and the obscure, but their music is at its finest when they blend time periods and historical map points. The gauzily distorted "Blurred View" sounds like a cross between 1990s trip-hop and an Alan Lomax field recording, with a drum loop that evokes the sound of hail on a faraway tin roof. The band stutters charmingly on "Certainty," and Lenker paints a cozy scene: "Sit on the phone, watch T.V./Romance, action, mystery," conjuring images of Dylan and the Band winding down after a long day of work at Big Pink with some Netflix and Wordle.
Two tracks later, after the acoustic waltz "Dried Roses," a beautiful old-timey picture of domesticity, comes "Wake Me Up to Drive," with sad-Eighties guitars and a drum machine bauble rhythm that sounds a bit like Lenker's rendition of "Within Your Reach" by her fellow Minnesota residents, the Replacements.
It's possible that if the record had just had the standard 12 or 13 tracks, an inspired afterthought like that would not have been included.