Mitski - The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We

Many musicians would give anything to have a sound at once so distinctive and multifaceted as Mitski’s, which explores a unique, fragile heartache just as capably through piano ballads as in glitchy synth stomps. ‘The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We’, her seventh record, is an achievement in that in such a diverse catalogue it manages to hatch its own identity without straying from her singular voice. ‘Bug Like An Angel’ clues in to a more subdued record populated by acoustic guitars and big vocal arrangements, but this is an illusion. Through songs that often seem to have bare-bones arrangements, the album becomes increasingly intense. For its entirety, guitars, pianos and whole orchestras are lost in vibrating soundscapes, and drums are rare. On ‘The Deal’, a lilting ballad morphs into an apocalyptic whirlwind, while ‘Star’ is at once discordant and glowing, as complex and delicate as anything off ‘Pet Sounds’. Taken individually these songs are all gorgeous, but as a whole they create an effect of being hemmed in by absence, that inhospitable land overwhelming in its minimalism. No other record today sounds so beautiful and full while being quite so sparse.