U.F.O.F.
Indie Rock
It's not very often that I'm at a total loss for words describing how an album makes me feel. U.F.O.F. is Big Thief's way of stunning me to silence.
Big Thief's absolute classic sophomore album, 2017's Capacity, was a showcase of all the different ways the band could produce any number of songs: rock, folk, lo-fi; it was a veritable smorgasbord of sounds, which made for a fun--if at times, a little random--experience.
U.F.O.F. is not random. In fact, every note is so expertly calculated that you can hear their thought process: a collection of songs that express every possible emotion with as little extraneous sound as possible. Little flashes of weirdness, like background screams on the opener, "Contact," or the theremin and static noises on closer "Magic Dealer," keep the traditional instrumentation from turning stale.
"Open Desert" shows its face as your standard Feist cover...that is until it reveals a chorus so beautiful and delicate that to sing louder than a whisper would destroy it. It is a moment so eye-opening and mesmerizing as to produce tears.
"Century" follows a more traditional songwriting format, but includes hints of Joni Mitchell, and a bass line to die for. The inclusion of an Allman Brothers-esque guitar solo is a respite from the sensory overload that comes in the first half of the album; as is "Strange," a tune so jazzy it might as well be a Steely Dan outtake. And "Terminal Paradise" sees Adrianne Lenker effortlessly shape-shift from Beth Gibbons, to Bjork, to Natasha Khan, proving that this sonic landscape is in the deftest of hands.
U.F.O.F.'s major standout is the penultimate track, "Jenni," which takes the lightness and fragility of the previous ten songs and throws them at the wall in a fit of heavy reverb and fuzz-delay so masterfully mixed that My Bloody Valentine would blush with inadequacy. It is a statement that proves Big Thief know exactly what they're doing in every sense.
This is Big Thief's most subtle, most empathetic, most ethereal, gossamer work yet, but they're not begging for your attention. Rather, it emanates from the center of the universe and waits for you to find it and claim your reward. A biblical flood distilled to a wispy dream, U.F.O.F. is--and I don't say this lightly--a perfect album.
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