Big Sigh

Album review

Marika Hackman is shameless, and listeners are better for it. She displays her vulnerabilities like carefully curated dioramas. Which isn't to say Big Sigh is bloodless; it's just that she puts it all out there with curiosity rather than victimhood. On her fifth album, the British singer-songwriter—whose songs started off as delicate folk flowers—returns to the sharper edges that made 2019's Any Human Friend so exciting. 

"No Caffeine" offers a poppy melody and dance beats as Hackman sings of chasing distraction—not from heartbreak but anxiety, which she has described as her "abusive partner": "Occupy your mind, don't stay home/ Talk to all your friends, but don't look at your phone/ Scream into a bag, try to turn your brain off." The great title track is only the first of many here to highlight how much Hackman has in common with Blondshell. Its stark folk-pop turns to moody angst once the drums kick in, their rhythm like a nervous cat; Hackman and co-producers Sam Petts-Davies (The Smile) and Charlie Andrews (Wolf Alice, Alt-J) have fun with the tension, layering in a couple of jump-scare blares. There are moments of absolute lyrical brutality. "Mom says I'm a waste of skin/ A sack of shit and oxygen ... I'm a fucked-up cradle for the afterbirth," Hackman sings on "Vitamins," her voice layered to the point of near-robotic numbness, as if a cocoon can protect from the ugliness of the words. "Dad thinks I can be something/ If I eat my vitamins…  But if we're all special then we're all the same," she continues, repeating that last line in a jokey put-on voice. The piano and strings are dreamy, but there's also a rhythmic metal noise like a gear slipping out of place again and again. Hackman has said pretty, melancholy "Hanging" is about looking back at being trapped in a difficult past relationship ("And my heart won't grow/ With your fingers down my throat"); there's a moment near the end when a dramatic kick-in bursts the bubble of quietude—a whoosh of noise and relief blowing in.

Hackman plays almost all the instruments on the album and there are moments of great intimacy (delicate "The Yellow Mile," with fingers sliding on guitar strings), starkness (folky "Blood") and lushness—"The Ground" features piano notes like water droplets, strings bending almost as if blown by a breeze, and vocals so hushed you might be dreaming them. But it's important to take in her words, even as excellent, demanding "Slime" explores eroticism that teeters into the grotesque:  "Stranger, I wanna rearrange you/ Climb your spine and shake your mind/ Slide back and feel your bones crack … So show me round your garden of slime/ And I'll show you mine." Lust, it seems, is never just lust for Hackman, who is always in her head and already playing out what happens when the fun is over. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz