Album Review: Adrianne Lenker Displays Strength in Softness with ‘Bright Future’

Bright Future depicts Adrianne Lenker at a new level of vulnerability. With stripped instrumentals and more simplistic lyrics, she demands for her tender introspections about love and vastness to be heard.

Written by Carly Williams

Photo courtesy of Germaine Dunes

A startling intimacy hums throughout Bright Future. On her new solo record, Adrianne Lenker commits to vivid images of love and hurt. 

Big Thief’s frontwoman is no stranger to expressions of vulnerability and acoustic instrumentals. Since her personal release of songs in 2020 and Big Thief’s 2022 record, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, fervent fans have propelled her to the spotlight by admiring her gentle nature and unwavering honesty. Both albums use a gentle hand with heavy topics like death, sex, and familial relationships. Over the years, her approach to music has become more recognizable. Each album plays with a mix of enveloping rustic instrumentals, while charming slices of life and sharp figurative language enhance every track. Bright Future still plays into these themes, but this time Lenker has managed to strip herself down even further. 

In her new record, Lenker introduces Mat Davidson, Nick Hakim, and Josefin Runsteen as contributors to vocals, instrumentals, and production. Bright Future favors more literal lyrics and varies the instrumentation as means to show honesty with oneself and others. Lenker’s comfort with vulnerability narrates every decision she makes. The subtle instrumentation and simple, everyday imagery reinforce one another to argue that conscious observation leads to unguarded love.

Bright Future wastes no time in arresting listeners in its intimacy. Unlike songs and the singles leading up to the album, “Real House'' is deafeningly quiet, save for a piano and the murmurs of wood. These isolated elements become a foil for Lenker’s voice. Instead of her usual strong vocals, she softly sifts through childhood memories that punctured her innocence and led her to understand empathy and pain. The memories sonically paralyze her. 

“Real House” is unapologetically straightforward, a deviation from Lenker’s poetic tendencies. Without the flourishes of metaphors, listeners do not have to spend time decoding lines: It is an instant punch. On the other hand, Lenker cannot hide behind an audience’s interpretation. The Indianapolis native puts her heart on display and she reflects on events that stand out as times of love and growth. 

“Sadness As A Gift” comes as a direct sonic contrast to “Real House,” an early foreshadowing of how Lenker fluctuates from marked closeness to distance through her album. At its heart, the single is an ode to nostalgia. Delivered under rich tones and soft harmonics, Lenker reminisces on a past lover as the seasons change. She references a time in which a kiss brought her so close to her lover that “You could hear the music inside my mind / And you showed me a place / I’ll find even when I’m old.” Lenker’s ease in telling her lover how she made her feel displays her courage in sharing vulnerability, even if the love has outgrown its time. Without deep introspection, Lenker might not have had the ability to admit these emotions to herself and others. 

Another familiar track, “Fool,” follows “Sadness As A Gift.” The futuristic spurring and voice dubs from the production stand out against the rest of the album, which generally takes on a more raw, acoustic character. However, these elements help construct a euphoric atmosphere that the listener can escape into.

“Fool” introduces Lenker’s tendency to highlight the value in simplicity and experiencing everyday activities with loved ones. Her main wish is to witness her neighbors grow into a family, “watch a show,” and “watch a garden grow.” These small moments voice Lenker’s adult sensibility towards childlike excitement over love. She understands the way love grows through routine actions instead of large momentous events.In a return to raw acoustics, “No Machine” floods in with a tender and serene air. In the background, a continuous tremor drones on from start to finish while Lenker creates a safe environment through repetitive guitar picking. Lenker continuously affirms her subject. “Don’t know what I’d do, don’t know what I’d do / Without you” continues throughout the track, receiving emphasis as accompanying vocals join in. Lenker does not shy away from direct declarations of love; she even goes as far to affirm it in front of others.

Photo courtesy of Stereogum

After the tender “Free Treasure,” delicate, warm strings explode into a brash bluegrass tune on “Vampire Empire,” a fan favorite that Big Thief and Adrianne Lenker have publicly experimented with during concerts. In Bright future, Lenker has transformed the track into something comparatively more brash and stirring than earlier renditions. While most tracks on Bright Future limit themselves to only one or two instruments, “Vampire Empire” overwhelms with a loud combination of piano, violin, and guitar. In turn, the tiring experience of codependent, contradicting relationships heightens in emotion when paired with unfiltered instrumentation. The song’s unapologetic loudness matches Lenker’s frustration as she recalls times of drastic closeness to someone in “We jumped into the pond and come under the shower,” only to be “[spun] all around and then [asked] not to spin.” Listeners now see a new side of Lenker. Instead of sweet moments only marked by sadness or joy, they hear her experiences of internal strife and romantic exhaustion. 

The remainder of the album carries out Lenker’s mellow approach to art. “Evol” and “Candleflame” have a marked proximity to the indie-rock singer. “Evol” encapsulates Lenker’s hold on language as she manipulates words and phrases to depict the contradictory nature of love. “Candleflame,” on the other hand, shares the same intimacy through quiet guitar picking and the vision of Lenker’s solitude with nothing else but a small source of light.

“Already Lost” alludes to the complete analog creation of Bright Future as it opens with the whirring of a record and talking from the rest of the team. The banjo and wavering voice add complexity to this record, as it bends the genre to include bluegrass influence. With an unguarded sweetness, Lenker gushes about the feeling of falling in love with someone new and coming to admire every facet of them. Through the effort of paying attention, she not only views her lover in a unique way, but she also has enough knowledge about them to attach meaning and memories to their essence. In “Already Lost,” Lenker continues to illustrate the benefits of thinking outside oneself and how it draws people closer together. 

Following “Already Lost,” “Cell Phone Says” and “Donut Seam” touch on the subject of impermanence that can disrupt the simple scenes that Lenker has valued throughout Bright Future. “Cell Phone Says” hones in on Lenker’s experience with long distance relationships, where only cell phones and “dreams by the lilac river” offer her the chance to see her lover. With a distinct awareness, Lenker acknowledges her propensity to feel with the lyric: “Oh giver of empathy / It is a gift so bitter you brought to me.” Subsequently, “Donut Seam” points out time’s fleeting character through, “This whole world is dying / Don’t it seem like a good time for swimming / Before all the water disappears?” Both tracks recognize the risk that time has on changing a routine that people have grown into — she even highlights the role of climate change in disrupting daily life. With this knowledge in mind, she pushes listeners to understand and appreciate the ephemeral traits of everyday actions and their ability to offer a deeper understanding of their loved ones. 

Bright Future closes with another single, “Ruined.” Lenker’s final installment proves as a culmination of everything she has been working for: the ability to stand unarmed in front of the people she loves. She imparts scenes of intimacy with her lover in the basement and draws on infatuation with the eager lyric, “Can’t get enough of you / You come around I’m ruined.” In a surreal whirl of piano and atmospheric production, Lenker leaves with a haunting portrayal of vulnerability and overstimulation in human connection. 

Bright Future arrives alongside spring and beckons listeners to develop into a renewed version of themselves. Adrianne Lenker’s intuition in careful consideration of others and worldly foundations present a new lens to view life. She offers her vulnerability without yielding to judgment and comes out insisting that love does not explode intermittently, but rather pulses in the background and exhibits itself in conscientious observation.