Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

Kind of primed to dislike this - the overlong, cryptic title and whimsical pencil sketch cover art. But I liked most of it and some very much. A vocal style I feel is kind of limited, though it held surprisingly well up at considerable length. A lot of the music was kind of nondescript folk guitar, but some really interesting stuff interspersed. Lyrics were the strongest point to me evwn if theybdid get a little too cute at times. Overall felt the good very much outweighed the merely OK.

This album is pure magic. Thsnkszfor putting it here.

Nice chill folky tunes with occasionally exciting beats. A flute shows up sometimes. I liked this so much.

This is really nice. Long, but nice. 4 stars.

Rating: 7/10 Best songs: Little things, Blurred view, Simulation swarm

It’s definitely overlong in a genre that’s overdone now but honestly this was fine by me from start to finish. Yeah I zoned out a couple times and a few of the songs were duds but there were also some pretty good ones like lovex3 so I can’t complain.

One thing I'll like about the user submitted albums (from having looked at the albums submitted) is that many are from the last 10 years and still out there putting out music so I'll have likely listened to it prior to getting it. I've seen both Big Thief and Adrianne Lenker (doing a solo show for her album Bright Future which I highly recommend) live this year of 2024 so I already like them and enjoy their music. I think Lenker is one of the best songwriters out there right now. Some other artists I love did her songwriting class which shows how influential she is in that regard. Saying that, one big complaint I have about this album is that it is long. I found so many albums on the original list to be way too long and I stand by it. I love many songs but at 80 minutes, considering their other albums have to date been all half that length... yeah could have cut it up. I know how damn prolific Lenker is, but even I think this was a bit excessive. My personal rating: 5/5 My rating relative to the original list: 4/5 (too long!!) Should this have been included on the original list? Tough one for me... I think they should have some representation on the list for their impact on the indie music scene in the last few years but that's more of a personal preference. I'm like 45-55 yes / no at this point.

Heard big thief many times, but somehow I never noticed that ot was Adrianna Lenker wow 4 3

Wow! This is a very good album! It sounds incredibly good. I really appreciated the recommendation. I still don’t think that an album only 2 years old should be part in any Best Albums list; it is a baby album. It hasn’t achieved enough compared to others. It hasn’t created a meaningful impact in music yet.

nice, enjoyed it 3.2

Charming stuff. It could grow on me.

Enjoyable

Pretty and enjoyable female-sung bluegrass and indie folk. 3.5 stars

When this album works, it's golden - Earthy, quietly elegant, mildly quirky. Where it doesn't work, it drags or wanders off into the weeds stylistically. On the whole a very nice listen, but also entirely too long. Fave Songs: Certainty, Blue Lightning, Spud Infinity, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, Dried Roses, Red Moon, Wake Me Up to Drive

What a mixed bag. There's several songs that are just pleasant to listen to on a cold Autumn day (which is probably helping my appreciation of this album) but it also has some really boring duds and it goes on way, way longer than it needs to. If this album was cut in half I could probably give it a 4, despite the fact that music like this tends to be very niche to me.

Indie folk, folk rock, Americana, country rock. Ni fu ni fa.

I saw Pitchfork gave this a ridiculously high rating but never checked it out. The vocals, for all their unflashiness, are solid. I appreciate parts of this record, such as when they dip their toes in what sounds a little like Goldfrapp trying to do a folk song ("Blurred View"). Singer Adrianne Lenker's voice sounds familiar, but I genuinely, for the life of me, can't figure out who I'm thinking of. Feels a little Dolores O'Riordan, Gillian Welch, and several singers I've heard on Mountain Stage. It's... fine? I return my earlier comment of "I like parts of it", and certain parts just do not click with me, such as the extremely repetitive "Sparrow". It's a long, long, loooong album at 80 minutes. It's not something I'm going to come back to. Favorite tracks: "Certainty", "Blurred View", "Simulation Swarm"

Pleasant but it only does one thing. 80 minutes is too long to do one brilliant things, let alone one quite nice thing. Rating: 2.5 Playlist track: Simulation Swarm Date listened: 02/12/24

I’ve given this album so many chances and I still can’t get into it

I’ve been a fan of previous Big Thief efforts and have usually enjoyed their LPs, but this one is entirely too long and bloated as an artistic project for my tastes. 80 minutes of music that doesn’t have much of an overarching narrative progression is a lot to ask of any listener, and even a band of this instrumental caliber struggles to hold together that much songwriting in a way that feels distinct track to track without getting tiring. Big Thief has always excelled at creating small, intimate moments in their tightly-coordinated albums, so I struggle to understand why they pushed to extremes here and tried to pack so much into one go.

Of all the female led indie music that’s come out over the past 10 years bug thief was never one that really grabbed my attention. This album had the same effect as I didn’t mind listening to it but it didn’t ever make me want to come back to a certain song or really dig deeper into the lyrics. It’s pretty simplistic album that is executed well but not something I’d revisit. 5.5/10

Artless crap pretending to be deep. No more folk please. 1/5.

Another "rock/folk" ... the truth is I'm tired of this mix of genres, it seems that each one wants to recommend "a better one" of them. The music doesn't seem special to me and sometimes I feel that the vocalist is trying to be too retro folk, it's like that music you'd expect to find in a bar somewhere on a melancholic afternoon... a feeling or mood that I'd rather avoid.