Photo by Sasha Arutyunova
Big Thief’s Adrienne Lenker has the kind of voice that can perfectly convey hurt and loss. Her earlier solo work highlighted this, setting her against sparse, folk-inspired arrangements, but as the leader of the Brooklyn band, she sounds defiant. “Masterpiece” tells a tale of two friends, confronting the world arm-in-arm. Big Thief is in ragged form, lurching forward with a sound pulled from the Crazy Horse playbook. That makes Lenker her own version of Neil Young: shaky, but standing tall amidst the noise.
“Masterpiece” appears on Masterpiece, out now via Saddle Creek. Big Thief plays a free in-store performance at Waterloo Records at 5 p.m. and opens for Kevin Morby tonight at the Sidewinder.
–Art Levy
