Big Thief’s “U.F.O.F.” is a wonder of cosmic folk

A modern folk masterpiece that soothes the spirit while confounding expectations

Big Thief lay out the gameplan for their third album from the very first track: “Contact” starts as a sultry folk piece, with gently strummed acoustic guitar, barely-there percussion and Adrianne Lenker delicately singing surreal poetry. Three minutes in, when you almost think it is over, a distant blood-curdling howl interrupts the gentle mood, and we transition to a crunching, hard-rock guitar outro. The howl repeats at regular intervals, like an ominous backbeat.

The message is that you can relax and float with the band, but don’t get too comfortable. For the most part, U.F.O.F. is an easy, magical listen with timeless melodies and silky vocals atop loopy folksy guitar. But the softness makes subtle variations stand out as if they were world-shaking events: Lenker’s singing continuously morphing from a whisper to a more affirmative deep style; a move to a slightly faster pace on the brilliant “Strange” feels like a breathless sprint; sparse quirky production embellishments seem like the future courting ancient music.

Besides the aforementioned “Strange”, another standout is “Jenni”, a tender take on heavy metal, a ghostly love-story (or something… Big Thief’s lyrics are mostly cryptic) with psychedelic guitar and rumbling bass.

Listening to U.F.O.F. is like crossing an invisible frontier to a strange fairy world, where everything is magical and precious, but where dark unknown forces lurk in the shadows. It is a trip well worth taking.