Mitski has established her persona as one of the most influential indie artists of the last decade. With hits such as “Nobody” and “Love Me More” she explores complex feelings, such as unworthiness and the codependency a relationship can bring to you. Making her last album an exciting moment not only for her fan base, but for the whole indie scene.
MITSKI AS AN INSPIRATION
With her first album LUSH (2012) being released more than a decade ago, Mitski has made her name known in the music industry. With other artists such as Japanese Breakfast and Phoebe Bridgers quoting her as an influence.
Phoebe, who is getting a lot of attention due to the success of the supergroup Boygenius, with Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, said to The New Yorker that she admires the “weirdness of the creative choices that Mitski seems to make so confidently”.
ALBUM REVIEW
Coming back once more with Patrick Hyland as her producer, she released on September 15th the album entitled The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We. Her first single “Bugs Like an Angel” was released with a music video in July. Having this song as the lead single was a great choice, given that it represents what she was making with the album, it sets the scene to a melancholic and poetic set ahead. In this one she makes a powerful ballad about alcoholic tendencies running in the family. In the Behind The Song video she explained that the loud choir in specific parts mark the intensity of the phrases she was saying, being what the listener should pay attention to the most.
She also dealt with other not so common themes in the album. In “The Deal”, for example, where it’s a tragic story about someone who apparently sold their soul for power and lost their good human nature, making it not bearable to live anymore. Finishing up with the phrase “There’s a deal that I made”, making it one of the most sorrowful songs of the list.
Leading it up with “When Memories Snow” was a happy balance in the order. In this one, it’s talked about when your memories haunt you -comparing it to the winter, meaning that the weather is uncontrollable and so are the timing of needing to deal with your past experiences, it has happened and it will happen again. However, going in the different direction of the lyrics, the musicality of the song is quite upbeat with loud drums and noticeable saxophone and violin, making it almost in a musical tone.
In “The Frost” she could have made a parallel with her song “Should’ve Been Me”, from her previous album Laurel Hell (2022). In the first one she says “You’re my best friend/ Now I’ve no one to tell” and in the second “Well I went through my list of friends/ I had no one to tell”. In both songs she expresses the feeling of loneliness, however, in “The Frost” she is mourning the loss of a friend or a friendship that she was very attached to, making it lonely not being able to share this experience with no one.
She has also mentioned romantic love in this album with “My Love Mine All Mine”, where she explores the emotion of being devoted to someone, in a place where you do not have the control of anything but you have your lover as a rock. Making it one of the most beautiful ballads, with a sweet choir in the chorus, she made the perfect slow-dance song.
In this she made other beautifully written slower ballads, such as “Buffalo Replaced”, “Heaven”, “I Don’t Like My Mind”, “Star” and “I’m Your Man”. Finishing up with the smart choice “I Love Me After You”, where the last line of the album is “I’m the king of all the land” making a connection with the album’s title The Land is Inhospitable And So Are We.
Even though, if being compared to her previous work, it is not a very experimental album, the melancholic tone and the poetic lyrics sure show it has the potential of being one of her best. With charming melodies yet sorrowful tendencies, it gets close to Fiona Apple’s album Fetch The Bolt Cutters.
WHAT MITSKI HAS SAID ABOUT THE ALBUM
The singer has said that this is one of her “most American albums”, including western soundtracks and Arthur Russel, american violinist, as just some of the many influences she had for it. In her newly updated Spotify profile, she said that one of the themes for this project was wishing she “could leave behind all the love I have after I die, so I can shine all this goodness, all this love that I’ve created onto people”.
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The article above was edited by Clara Rocha.
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