Review Summary: Big Shot
Lenker’s previous album ‘songs’ was a breakthrough of sorts and showed her solo work could become as big a draw as Big Thief; it helped that it contained a couple of undeniable and outstanding individual tracks in ‘not a lot, just forever’ and ‘anything’. Still, the album was certainly homogenous, a low key folk atmosphere established itself and remained throughout. ‘Bright Future’ lives up to its title as it delivers on the promise of ‘songs’ and proves that before long Lenker could step out as first and foremost a solo artist.
The confident portrait on the cover confirms as much while also hinting that the country influence on ‘Big Thief’s ‘Dragon’ was likely to continue across to the songwriting here. So it proves, with plenty of fiddle and other rustic instrumentation accompanying a more prominent country twang in the singing.
It’s an all round more strident sound and on top of that this time Lenker delivers true variety; she’s happy stripping everything down to unadorned piano ballads on ‘Evol’ and ‘Ruined’ that provide perfect platforms to show off the fragility in her nuanced vocals, while the reworked version of ‘Vampire Empire’ goes the complete opposite direction and channels her inner ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’. Best of all she comes close to perfecting her take on country folk on the sublime trio of ‘Already Lost’, ‘Sadness as a Gift’ and ‘Free Treasure’.
A surprising release that can initially feel like somewhat of a ‘cold fish’ but slowly goes about dismantling your defences; it’s the first album in a while where on each of my initial seven or eight listens a different song made the deepest emotional impact and staked a claim to be considered the standout. I’m taking that as a good sign, the future is bright, why not?
