Adrianne Lenker - Bright Future
Indie Folk – Released March 22, 2024 – 12 songs, 43 mins
REID
Too Sweet Reviews hit another milestone this week as we complete review number 125. These numbers will never cease to amaze me. Me and the boys considered doing a collective beloved album to celebrate the occasion but ultimately decided against it. Maybe it’s fate we landed on one of my current favourite artists, Adrianne Lenker. The thirty-two-year-old singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist from Indianapolis creates music as art in its purest form. Extraordinary talent brings lofty expectations and the release of Bright Future was highly anticipated on the 2024 schedule.
Let me hit you with a few descriptive superlatives in an attempt to adequately articulate appreciation for Lenker’s vocals. Elevating. Every song is raised to another level by her voice. It’s true when she performs with her band, Big Thief and is only amplified in her solo work. Timeless. Adrianne is a modern spin of a throwback style. Her unique tone could fit seamlessly in any decade of old and its natural beauty needs no effects to shine. Captivating. Pulling from my pal Roz on this one - close your eyes with those headphones in for the full experience. The subtleties in her vibrato give goosebumps.
Coupled with that amazing voice is her exquisite writing. To say she has a way with words would be putting it lightly. Love songs like No Machine and Free Treasure immediately vault to the top of the best songs of the year list. Below is an excerpt from the latter:
Do you wanna go to the river?
I know this spot so deep and green
With wild raspberries and apple trees
And rocks to climb between
Water like a washing machine
Do you wanna dance?
Sometimes I think I try too hard
I trip on my shoes and I trip on my shirt
Get caught on the dirt in the yard
Caught on the dirt in the yard
You show me
Understanding
Patience and pleasure
Time and attention
Love without measure
Love without measure
Pardon the long quote but it’s too good to stop. Lenker uses nature, fruit, colours and household appliances for scenic imagery, positioning the listener in their own version of that location. She proceeds to use self-deprecating humour to simultaneously demonstrate her vulnerability and how deeply she feels for her person. This is just one example of Adrianne’s amazing lyricism. Bright Future is filled with brilliance.
The music itself takes a bit of a backseat to Lenker’s voice and lyrics but it remains a strength. Whether it’s the calculated piano ballads (Real House, Evol, Ruined), tasteful violin-led folk (Sadness As A Gift), percussionless experimental (Fool) or my personal favourite, stripped down guitar (No Machine, Free Treasure, Donut Seam); she consistently matches the intent of her songwriting with meticulous, mood setting instrumentals.
I’ve used the comparison to Neil Young in the past and she continues to strengthen my case. How amazing would it be to hear her covering After the Goldrush, Old Man or The Needle and the Damage Done? Another clear resemblance is dedication to their craft and shear volume of released material. Young has put out over forty-five studio albums in his career and that doesn’t include live, compilations or EPs. Just a ridiculous number. He is still releasing an album annually, with another scheduled to drop later this month. Since 2016, Lenker has released five studio albums with Big Thief and three on her own (not including instrumentals (2020)). She’s on her way to putting up huge numbers herself! In the grand scheme of things, genuine love of your profession is something to marvel at. Anyone who puts this much time and effort into something they love should be applauded. And she is. However, so much output can result in a dip in quality and that’s my only criticism of this record. A couple filler tracks could have been trimmed and it would have been that much better.
Adrianne Lenker is a musician, in the truest sense of the word. With her hands in every element, listeners can feel a true connection to her work. She has flirted outside mainstream circles up to now so if you haven’t heard of her, Bright Future is her latest triumph in a rapidly growing catalog.
Overall Rating: 8.2/10
Favourite Song: No Machine
ROZ
This week's review comes from a multifaceted artist who not only leads a critically successful band in Big Thief - a band that has been reviewed by us before and has come up in the TSR circle many times - but is also an extremely talented indivdual with her own solo career. Recorded during the fall of 2022 and in a studio deep in the scraggly woods, Adrian Lenker’s fifth studio album Bright Future has finally made it to the presses.
Lenker shares a special trait with a small group of artists who have a similar, yet profound effect on me; an ability to create vivid, almost photorealistic mental imagery through songwriting. Not since my review of Lucy Dacus' Home Video have I so lucidly materialized the aches and groans of an artist as they navigate through the qualms and pains that life continues to throw in front of them. You can envision the lack of foundation, the anxiety of never settling down through each play-through of Real House, as a gentle piano arrangement taps along to the tempo of Lenkers words. You can feel the aching pain through Sadness As A Gift, while its violin plays its equally sad, somber tones. Each choral verse of No Machine pairs with a gentle plucking acoustic; a cohesion that elevates her words while never overcrowding them. When her lyrical substance turns aggressive, so too does the instrumentation as Vampire Empire throws you into a violent, tumultuous row between lovers who's flame was snuffed out ages ago. The palindrome-like nature of Evol serves as not only a showing of skill but also as the singular moment where I bask in the clever and complex songwriting talents that only the likes of Adrianne Lenker can possess.
The instrumentation that I've described above leads us into the second prong of this two pronged attack that makes this album so great: the raw, intelligently crafted arrangements and production choices that coincide with Lenker’s musical poetry. I use the term ‘intelligent’ because that is exactly what I believe it to be; every song seems to peak, dip and flow along with the singers vocal melodics, inflections, and energy levels throughout the track list. And, while many production teams try (and mostly fail) to make such efforts as transparent as possible, Bright Future truly does sound like a genuine, organic session between a group of musicians that have a deep respect and warm, comforting care for one another. Whether that is genuine or not is truly up to the listener to decide, but through the 100+ albums I've had the pleasure of analyzing over the years, Bright Future really does feel like a sweet, come-together-naturally endeavor. Like a true jam recording session among friends - deep in those scraggly woods.
Adrianne Lenker proves on her sixth solo outing that her skills as a songwriter are simply unmatched. Bright Future is poetry in motion; with a sound and substance that is sure to resonate with you long after the music is turned off.
Overall Rating: 8.1/10
Favourite Song: Evol
LUNDI
The music industry has to be feeling blessed with the current saturation of amazing singer-songwriters. Every few months someone new seemingly drops an album and snatches the proverbial crown. TSR resident sad music boy greatly appreciates it. Next challenger is long time contender and arguable crown wearer herself, Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief with her sixth solo studio album Bright Future.
It’s impossible not to be swept up in the beauty that is Adrianne Lenker and that certainly remains true with Bright Future. You won’t catch me making a fuss if you don’t enjoy her vocal but I think at this point she’s undisputedly the best song writer currently writing music. She is a poet, art in one of its purest and truest forms. Where most of the greats find a way to do an album every three years, Lenker seemingly has new music every three months and with absolute zero sacrifice of quality. Every song is thoughtful, precise and equipped with an innate sense of detail. She is a prestigious artist to be cherished. The weaving of words paired with intricate descriptive details never fail to paint a beautiful imaginary masterpiece in the mind of the listener. Bright Future can leave you in awe of her skillset and is must listen territory for those who live for lyrical dissection.
Her backing support for the album is well orchestrated and detailed providing an effective yet subtle mix of complimentary pianos, strings and percussion. Her studio mates do well to never outshine Lenker which in most cases works but does leave a couple of songs feeling a bit undercooked. The instrumental talent is raw and no doubt apparent but had Lenker tracked these songs more than once in the studio they would have certainly found some areas for more pronounced musical integration. I’m all for bare bones music that lets the singer shine, but they don’t exactly do that either. It just feels a little unsure or rushed. Far from bad but definitely a little flawed.
What it really boils down to is that despite the vocal and song writing prowess Lenker displays, the live album approach fails to elevate her music. It certainly is impressive to do each track on one take without any play back so this isn’t some drastic negative, but ultimately I didn’t need any convincing that Lenker was a fantastic musician begging to be heard live. In a list of pros and cons the edge tips slightly to the downside. The industry has given all artists the leeway and tools to perfect their studio albums with an understanding the best can replicate it live and there’s very limited mixing, production, engineering and mastering to break down here with the resulting incomplete on the report card doing more harm than good. Bright Future’s lack of use of these skill sets creates an unavoidable roughness that develops listener fatigue. Uneven in quality where the songs don’t seem quite figured out. I see this album as a nice occasional listen but don’t feel like it will have much if any longevity with the majority of listeners. I get what Lenker was going for, and it is impressive in ways, but studio album to studio album, indie folk to indie folk, it feels incomplete.
Adrianne Lenker is music’s best song writer with Bright Future further cementing the iconic status she deserves. Despite some flawed artistic choices with the album direction Lenker is too talented to fail.
Overall Rating: 7.8/10
Favourite Song: Free Treasure