u.f.o.f
| Big Thief
u.f.o.f
U.F.O.F. is the third studio album by the American band Big Thief, released through 4AD on May 3, 2019. The album was recorded at Bear Creek Studio, a secluded studio with lush nature surroundings in Woodinville, Washington. The songs "From" and "Terminal Paradise" previously appeared in a different form on Adrianne Lenker's 2018 solo album abysskiss. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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The Guardian
Hypnotic soft guitars mask uneasiness on the New York four-piece’s third album: it really packs a punch.
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Rock the Body Electric
At times more of an musical knife edge would harden these tracks and play against Lenker's soft vocals, but as it stands U.F.O.F. is a warm solar wind of a record from Big Thief.
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Secret Meeting
U.F.O.F is a huge statement of intent: a genuine classic album that not only sets the four piece apart from their contemporaries, but confirms them as one of the most uniquely exciting bands America has ever produced. Yes, it’s that good.
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The New Yorker
The album feels alive and abundant, like it’s imperceptibly growing.
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Music OMH
UFOF is a natural, welcome progression, and one that you likely won’t want to tear yourself away from.
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The Alternative
There are plenty of such ambiguities on UFOF, and all of them are fascinating.
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The Wee Review
Brooklynites’ third album is nice, but needs to let rip more.
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Wrongmog
UFOF sees them pare things down further still, in a collection of gentle folk that seems dazed by its own exquisite beauty.
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Pitchfork
The third album from the Brooklyn quartet is an intimate and surreal experience, a true masterpiece of folk music from a band working together at the highest level.
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Paste Music
On U.F.O.F., Big Thief embrace their more subtle and mystical sides while capturing a wider array of landscapes—the cosmic (“U.F.O.F.”), bucolic (“Cattails”), domestic (“From”) and urban (“Betsy”).
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All Music
A foray into artful album rock for the band, U.F.O.F.'s shifts in presentation are subtle and seem wholly organic throughout. It's a record deserving of such an evocative title, which captures its dreamily impressionistic yet unsettling nature.
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Golden Plec
‘U.F.O.F.’ is full of subtle charm and intricate lyricism. Self-same arrangements cannot bury Big Thief’s song-writing chops.
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Sputnik Music
It's a dizzying brew of lyricism, musicianship and synergy that provides another dream come true for any fan following this rapidly exemplary band. 4.5/5
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Pop Matters
U.F.O.F., then, is an almost perfect album, "with the windows wide", as "Cattails" has it, blowing a cleansing breeze of fresh spring air through our musty winter halls, all while leaving us as blank as if we were newborn ciphers and scratching our heads as if we were grizzled and bewildered elders, none the wiser for all of our tempestuous experience.
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Ear Buddy
The band embrace imperfection on their third, and maybe best, record.
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Long Live Vinyl
U.F.O.F’s rootsy charm, unfurling steadily and displaying the sort of organic telepathy that only the finest bands are blessed with.
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Loud and Quiet
U.F.O.F. – an album that makes a mockery of any suggestion that Lenker and her bandmates might have wilted under the pressure of keeping their remarkable purple patch going.
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Under the Radar
The album ends with the hum of insects as imagined by synthesizers, sweeping us into a futuristic past where growth and disintegration are equal and opposite forces. The balance of nature achieved. 8.5/10
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Stereogum
U.F.O.F. documents a band coming into their own, messing around with new ideas and having fun doing it. Listening to it feels like sharing in that experience.
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The Skinny
Big Thief lead us gently from the beaten path and into the unknown with U.F.O.F., a hypnotic third offering that showcases their courage and chemistry. 4/5
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Post To Wire
This album continues the mystery and beauty of their previous releases while adding even more depth and textural minutiae.
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The Student Playlist
Delivered at a stable pace and focussed on songwriting, ‘U.F.O.F.’ is the most expansive Big Thief album yet.
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Lemon Wire
The Brooklyn band is on the rise, and “U.F.O.F.” could be their big breakthrough.
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Aphoristic Album Reviews
It’s not the most immediate album, but U.F.O.F. is stunning, a record of almost limitless depth and character.
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ABC News
Big Thief's 'U.F.O.F.' is hauntingly beautiful.
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The Line of Best Fit
The album does not have an obvious standout to rival "Masterpiece", but in a sense it doesn’t need one.
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AP News
Though the album does not make itself easy to understand, there is comfort in the ambiguity. In the album’s title track, the band makes peace with the object they cannot comprehend, “To my UFO friend/ goodbye, goodbye/like a seed in the wind.”
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Post Trash
The work of Big Thief speaks to us in a radical way: there is renewal, fresh air and the immediacy of one of the most sincere sounding bands currently around. U.F.O.F. is a blessing, even if Easter has passed a while ago.
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DIY Mag
The title track 'UFOF' is full of rhymically finger-picking and overlaid with almost accidental sounding flashes of studio warbles, like an extra terrestrial reaching out from another dimension.
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Doubtful Sounds
If they didn’t already, now Big Thief unequivocally have your attention. Lovers of inventive music would be foolish not to join them on their post-folk journey.
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The Fountain
U.F.O.F. is stunningly original, as warm and inviting as it is seriously creepy.
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Stack
On their third album, Brooklyn quartet Big Thief once again stun with a collection of delicate songs offset by a quiet devastation.
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Glide Magazine
BIG THIEF CREATE SUBTLEST AND MOST COMPLEX WORK YET WITH ‘U.F.O.F.’
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Stereoboard
‘U.F.O.F’ is a truly endearing record, and over time the more delicious it is to devour. It is the sound of lonesome afternoons in late June, sat on the porch after escaping the city.
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Recommend Listen
Before U.F.O.F., Big Thief had their sights sets on covering the ground, and did just that. Now that they’ve expanded the map and widened their eyes beyond what we see before us, they simply sound like their own adventure.
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FYE
Their songs represent an emotional bravery and realness that weaves intimate relationships with the listener, a phenomenon that has made them one of the most widely-respected bands of the current era.
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The Needle Drop
U.F.O.F. is mostly listenable—if a bit derivative—indie folk with a few flashes of brilliance sprinkled throughout the tracklist.
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Tais Awards
U.F.O.F. is an album wrinkled with uncertainty, but Lenker’s intensely descriptive narratives unfold and carefully crease these recollections, relying on instinctual emotions rather than searching for reasons why.
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Soundblab
U.F.O.F. is a work of art, not simply music or songs. Gaps are left for the listener to fill in or ponder.
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Rolling Stone
With their third album in three years, indie-rock searchers reach toward the supernatural and sublime.
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Relix
Those precise touches are matched across U.F.O.F. by intricate, nuanced playing, where each repetition leaves its own impression without repeating a chorus.
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American Songwriter
U.F.O.F. is a beautiful album, but one that finds Big Thief a little more willing to push their limits, both in terms of abrasiveness and grace. Perhaps Big Thief are no longer a secret, but they continue to draw the listener ever closer.
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Erie Reader
It's a simple sound and a somber rumination, a haunting lullaby made into a beautiful record.
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The Current
By the time we make our year-end (and decade-end lists) under cover of winter darkness, it's easy to imagine U.F.O.F. revealing its treasures in even more ways, as its magic spell continues to grow.
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Sic Magazine
Unquestionably Big Thief’s strongest album to date, U.F.O.F. has the depths to mean many things to many people and yet its overriding simplicity will ensure that it is universally loved.
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mxdwn
This album is wonderful and is well worth the listen.
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No Depression
That theme of time passing by and its power to distance us from our loved ones and moments we never want to forget comes through vividly.
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The Feedback Society
Brooklyn band Big Thief take big chances again, to wonderful results, with their new album U.F.O.F.
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Rough Trade
An exquisite blend of gently sweet vocals and raw, raving fuzzed up guitar punctuated by primal screaming voices.
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STGA
U.F.O.F. is an absolutely stunning listen, and a clear early favorite for album of the year. It has been a joy to observe the progression of the group from a rough, muddier sound playing among the “smell of piss and beer”, to the gorgeously (witch)crafted, effortlessly rambling folk outfit they have become.
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Uproxx
They might have chosen the road less traveled, but Big Thief nonetheless is on the way to greatness.
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For Folk's Sake
This is in a sense the best possible combination with Lenker’s intimate confessions, dedicated to an imaginary “UFO friend”, and filled with oblique references and rich images.
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Entertainment
In February, Big Thief dropped their third studio album, U.F.O.F. The record was soon deemed a “masterpiece of folk,” “impressionistic,” and “spellbinding” — praise that would have been enough for any band to call it a year.
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Saratoga Street Review
On the whole, this album is required listening for 2019. While a couple of the songs are forgettable, most of them are brilliant and touching.
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Glide Magazine
Lyrically, U.F.O.F. is a dream in the dark. Characters and scenery interact outside of time. Names of mystery women appear, then disappear. Cruelties flash. Pronouns meld. There is a darkness here, but it’s not one to be feared.
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COS
“UFOF” is a dreamy spiral of guitars that pull gently like a welcome, slightly eerie tractor beam.
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Closed Captioned
With U.F.O.F. Big Thief Crafts One of the Prettiest Albums of 2019 So Far.
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Spin
U.F.O.F. contains none of the sorts of songs that tend to get the loudest reactions at Big Thief shows: no anthems-in-waiting like “Paul,” no Springsteen-ish road warriors like “Shark Smile,” not even magisterial ballads like “Mary.”
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PBs
The atmospheric feel of the album has really grown on me with every listen, but I still feel like it is missing human vibrancy.
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birn
I would recommend U.F.O.F. to anyone looking for some nice soft tunes, for either a melancholy night, or just something to really dive in deep, listen and appreciate the music.
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The Tape Deck
U.F.O.F. may concern itself with unknown forces, but the true beauty of album is that it operates like one, drawing power from some unidentifiable source and burrowing itself into your subconsciousness on every repeated listen.
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RPM
Perhaps the greatest strength of the album is its ability to constantly surprise in regards to how close it is to the listener.
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Eject
On their latest record, U.F.O.F, Big Thief's tormented soul almost seems at peace.
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Key Mail Records
What it lacks in the department of immediate emotional impact perfected on Capacity, it makes up for in dreamy speculation—perhaps even extraterrestrial intrigue.
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