Consumer Guide Album

Big Thief: Capacity [Saddle Creek, 2017]
Disrupting her delicate, speechlike soprano with unpredictable guitar comps acoustic and electric, Adrianne Lanker and her guys mean to prove that women needn't be loud to be strong and men needn't be needy. As the explicitly heterosexual opener puts it: "There's a woman inside of me / There's one inside of you, too." Admittedly if not proudly best suited to headphones or computer speakers, the band is subtle, arty, obscure--you know "Great White Shark" references an automobile accident only because Lanker said so in an interview, and "Watering" attenuates the brutality of sexual assault with imagery so sensationalistic it's abstract. But throughout she evokes the discordant ins, outs, and in-betweens of friendship, family, and you bet the romantic bond. B+