Big Sigh

Released

After two albums as a Laura Marling-like folkie, Marika Hackman moved to raucous indie rock for her Big Moon-backed third LP I’m Not Your Man, shifting the dial again for the more electronic-flavoured Any Human Friend in 2019. On fifth album Big Sigh, however, Hackman appears to have found a way for her differing musical aliases to live in happy co-existence. Happy in a stylistic terms that is, as the songs here find Hackman working and writing through what sounds like a particularly devastating personal period. Yet the sombre mood and repeated calls to drag herself out of it has produced her most viscerally powerful record to date. The grungy title track, Laurie Anderson-like Vitamins, delicate piano instrumental The Lonely House and the spooked acoustic finger-picking of closer The Yellow Mile all coalescing into one rich, satisfying whole.

Chris Catchpole