Consumer Guide: November, 2025
Shameless beauty track after track, an inspirational Afropop surprise, mood pieces suitable for the despondent historical moment, and a country album that fights the blues with more blues.
Big Thief: Double Infinity (4AD) I worried at first about the disappearance of their trademark delicacy, but a few listens in I’d not only cheered up but fallen in love—they were going for shameless beauty and getting there track after track, most strikingly on one called “All Night All Day,” which begins with a transported Adrianne Lenker stanza I can’t resist quoting: “All night, all day/I could go down on you/Hear you sing your pleasure/God is good/Or whatever made the mouth/To drink the treasure.” But the hero is drummer James Krivchenia, who I’d given so little thought that I had to keep looking back to make sure I got the spelling right and whose own idea of transport if not pleasure itself is mating clatter with momentum verse after verse. A