Album Rating: 4.5

This is my first dive into her solo stuff and although I have every intention of checking her previous albums, it's hard to imagine any of them topping this.

Album Rating: 5.0

Her debut is wonderful. More pop minded and structured than this, but it's a good kind of different. I think I may prefer this one, though.

Album Rating: 4.0

I think abysskiss is still my favorite by her but this one is indeed lovely

Album Rating: 5.0

Not checked that yet. Gotta get on it.



The more I listen to this the more I'm getting them soothing Swim Inside the Moon vibes. Blissful.

Album Rating: 4.5

Each time I listen to this a new song stands out (right now it's Heavy Focus...uh muh gawd). Trending towards a top-10 album of the year if I might speak too soon. 2020 is shaping up to be a hell of a year. I have more 5's and 4.5's than I can even remember.

Album Rating: 5.0

Probs in my top 5 for the year so far. Thank you, blush.

Album Rating: 4.0

first half of this is pretty much perfect

agreed. also wanted to note i think i actually disagree with the sentiments that this is scattered or lacking structurally. there's some really fucking clever writing on this. lots of the progressions follow in a way that's both melodically and rhythmically coherent. the only structural issues i noticed is some of the songs don't end very confidently, rather they just sorta fizzle out. i'm gonna presume that final sour note of a song ending in a sputter rather than a stride probably contributes to the album feeling loose maybe? that's at least what i'm finding after a few more listens

"anything" is so so so so so good

Album Rating: 4.7

I don't think it lacks structure so much as individual songs feel like long singular flows; on a lot of them, she moves from verse to chorus and back with little discernment, and often without pause. I think she's an absolutely fantastic songwriter and a lot of thought probably goes into her writing -- just how different Big Thief is on their forth album than their first is insane to me, given there isn't any real huge change in sound (other than, like, oh, less folky, more folky, less rocky, more rocky, indie???) -- but it definitely has this feeling of magical spontaneity for me.

Like, I can discern all the songs very easily now, having listened to it a stupid amount of times, but first few listens (and even now to some extent) felt like a long beautiful blur.

Album Rating: 4.7

Hm... I get your point, but. I'm trying to figure out what exactly strikes me as scattered or fragmented about this. It's partly definitely the images evoked in the lyrics. Like the horse, Ingydar, whose existence we're not really given any context to, and how the image of his dead body invokes all these other random, abstract memories (my mind immediately saw ingydar and thought Indigo, her ex); and how that ties into a lot of other violent images on the album. It feels like a lot of disparate thoughts and ideas and images and memories being spewed into the one space, and patterns just happening to form out of that even though there's no obvious narrative link (unless you're aware of it as a breakup album, which it doesn't really even have to be).

Mmm ok I see what you are getting at. On the front of it a lot of the songs aren't that varied in timbre or dynamics across their length, though I think it's clever little allusions to upcoming changes like the "Oh oh oh oh"s in Heavy Focus preempting the seminal hook of the song which make me feel there was a great deal of attention placed in song progressions, even in their simplicity, or maybe directly because of that simplicity.

On the topic of lyrics, yea I can 100% agree on that. Lyrics feel closer to really personal experiential vignettes than anything concrete, or at least concrete to anyone that's not Lenker. Really fucking beautifully written stuff even if a lot of the quirkier lines go over my head.

Album Rating: 3.5

I personally have a bit of a hard time with her impressionistic lyrical style. When it works it works but a lot of the time it find it a bit drifty.

Album Rating: 4.7

"Lyrics feel closer to really personal experiential vignettes than anything concrete, or at least concrete to anyone that's not Lenker." -- I know it's naive mythologising on my part, but I think (or want to think) that even more than that it feels unclear to the singer, performer or whomever: like a lot of things not yet fully explored are thrown out there and kept abstract so that a lot of the meaning-making (or finding) comes after the fact.

"I personally have a bit of a hard time with her impressionistic lyrical style. When it works it works but a lot of the time it find it a bit drifty." -- Yeah, I totally get that. Drifty and impressionistic is absolutely right. I see this in a lot of her insta posts, too, a lot of half-sensical things that feel pregnant with meaning, though could as easily lose people.

Album Rating: 4.7

"I think it's clever little allusions to upcoming changes like the "Oh oh oh oh"s in Heavy Focus preempting the seminal hook of the song which make me feel there was a great deal of attention placed in song progressions, even in their simplicity, or maybe directly because of that simplicity." -- Yeah, that's a really good point. Although, I do wonder to what extent things like that are just intuitive to her at this point.

"Although, I do wonder to what extent things like that are just intuitive to her at this point."

Part of me was wondering this, especially given she has a back catalog. I'm definitely going to be hopping on her other albums and Big Thief material, think I might just be missing context here. Standalone, I find her writing a lot stronger than a lot of artists in this vein, musically speaking, so maybe there's plenty of room for me to be even more impressed if I look back into things

ramon can you please call your mother asap she's worried sick about you!

"it feels unclear to the singer, performer or whomever"

Given how I go about writing my own music, I can't shake the idea this is probably true haha. Don't think it's the most damning thing you could assume about someone's art; if anything it just makes the final product more intriguing as something of a character study

Album Rating: 4.0

I'm still amazed how Anything became one of my favorite singles of the year like literally overnight, I never felt lukewarm towards it but man did it just bloom in front of my eyes

Album Rating: 3.5

“Anything” is for sure a gem