It's a little difficult writing about Big Thief at the minute as they're so far ahead of most of the rest of the contemporary pack now. With Two Hands, their second album of 2019, (releasing two LPs of this quality was something bands used to do but haven't for goodness knows how long). This does nothing so much as drive the point home if it needed driving. They stake a very good claim to being the best Rock band in the world at this point in time.
Two Hands is a much more direct record than U.F.O.F. which came out in late Spring. Less ethereal, more earthbound and visceral, much of it recorded in first takes in the studio, it brings back some of the tangible pain of experience of their first two albums Masterpiece and Capacity but the band are not looking back but driving fearlessly onward.
It's gratifying to see a group so obviously dedicated to the cause as this one. Adrianne Lenker is clearly a first among equals but this is a band in the proper way they used to make them, Two Hands is a record of quite vivid immediacy, you feel like you're in the room with them. Ten sublime, intimate, heartfelt songs served up with passion, blood and sinew. The world is laid out before them and Big Thief know it only too well. A force of nature.
I haven't even been able to bring myself to listen to this one yet because I'm still completely wrung out by the first one. It takes a significant emotional commitment to immerse yourself in a Big Thief album, I have learned, so I need to regroup and catch my breath before I dive into another one so soon after its predecessor. But I'll get there eventually.
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