Songs from Big Pleasant is a strongly memorable album from Big Pleasant, an artist based in the Catskill Mountains who crafts a vivid, interconnected portrait of a small fictional town. Each track follows its eccentric, sometimes supernatural residents, blending moments of wonder—angels, prophetic dreams, uncanny happenings—with grounded explorations of human connection. Entirely self-produced, the album fuses indie rock, alt-country, lo-fi, and slacker rock into a warm, intimate sonic world.
A warm, twangy rock sound plays amidst cautionary lyrical foretelling on “Speaking for the Trees,” opening the album. Dreamy vocal reflections and an impactful outdoors field recording, from Estonian sound recordist Veljo Runnel, pair with warnings of environmental and moral decay. The narrator has visions of a future involving “cutting down trees to build a fast food restaurant.” The town’s trees plea, as a voice of nature: “Let us be man, let us be.” Surreal and poignant, the album’s opener stirs in its depictions of looming threats to a small community, whose way of life — appreciating nature, and close-knit connections — may be at risk.
A further reverence for nature and Big Pleasant in its current form is showcased with “The Seagulls,” a lovely track with shades of Neutral Milk Hotel in its melodic art-folk introspections. The standout line — “it’s not yet against the law to enjoy the clouds” — again references a looming sense of restriction and change, where enjoyment of nature — whether marveling at tall trees or the sky above — takes a backseat to more short-sighted creature comforts of society. A darker swirl of guitars and synths stir on “The Blackened Ooze and the Little Birds too…” — resembling a confronting of those potential adversaries; the black ooze and the birds “swooping overhead” play as ominous forces into the devastating “I held your face” conclusion, aesthetically showing shades there of Wilco’s moodiest efforts.
While the album often succeeds in lofty thematic pursuits of humanity and connection, it also stirs with heartfelt focuses like “Me and You Decapitator,” a demonstration of love in Big Pleasant within a country/folk soothing and shimmering atmospheric send-off, reminiscent of Damien Jurado. “Take off my head and kiss me / for every hell that I undo,” envelops with intimate imagery capturing surrender, desire, and the thrill of chaotic connection. The more laid-back, day-to-day character continues on the ensuing “Serling’s Comet,” where the vocals admit that “not much is new in big pleasant” — before blasting off into a whirring rock ardency, where “suicidal idealizing a giant rock coming down from the sky” becomes a fixation of many town residents, adding another foreboding element that threatens their daily lives.
A visitation from angels is amongst the other occurrences in Big Pleasant, detailed on “Daniel Saw an Angel,” developing from subdued folk immersion into a snarling alt-rock fervency. The town has seen its share of both wonder and unease, from comets to accounts of angels — in this case “over the trailer park, wrapped in white apparel” — and it’s conveyed in fantastic musical from throughout the album. Another slice-of-life gem comes on album finale “Big Pleasant Credit Union,” a caressingly textured folk beauty that ruminates on this town of unique people, with fears and loves, while still emphasizing how human connection shines through all the dysfunction and anxiety. Songs from Big Pleasant succeeds in both its melodic and narrative-led entrancement.
