Mitski - Happy

Underpinned by the tenacious flicker of a short-circuiting drum machine, and flitting between glossy lyrical naivety and sexually charged second meanings, Mitski’s latest dwells in the shadows – in stark contrast to ‘Happy’s seemingly cheerful title. Appearing in the guise of a visiting lover- and departing just as quickly leaving cookie wrappers and tea stains in his wake - happiness makes a brief enough cameo in ‘Happy’. For the most part, though, this is a song about what happens once happiness has fled the scene; the tidying up, sadness, and exhausting anger that lives and thrives on the flip-side.

Bearing bittersweet half-echoes of St Vincent at her most unsettling and melancholy, Mitski bends starkly personal statements around warped, experimental corners. Like a freakish hall of mirrors, nothing takes on a predictable shape, either. Tearing through sinister nursery rhymes, parping saxophone rips, and right back to those troubling, empty bass-pounds, ‘Happy’ gives few resolutions. The only sure-fire fact? ‘Puberty 2’ is shaping up into one special record.