There is something odd about when I first hear any Mitski record. Instinctually, I believe that the best singer-songwriter records tend to be somewhere in the 40-minute range. It’s enough time to build an atmosphere without cutting the lyrical component short. On average, Mitski’s albums fall somewhere below that. This isn’t to say that the songs are bad, but I’m left a little underwhelmed. They go by so quickly that I never felt immersed in the atmosphere. Of course, this is a fault on my part because expecting every album to be the same is a toxic way to listen. It’s usually upon a second listen that I finally remember why she’s so beloved.
“The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We” is one of those albums that benefits from spending time with it. Upon release last Friday, I remember the initial listen feeling so slight that I contemplated whether I’d give it another compulsive listen. My impression was that it was merely a “return to nature” album, not unlike this year’s P.J. Harvey release. The animal noises rang through my mind in the hour afterward with the feral lyrics making me think more of pastorals than emotions. But there was something about that initial listen that unraveled the longer I sat and thought about it. For starters, I wanted to believe I had missed something. However, I just believed that it was more than an audible hiking trip. In fact, it’s so much more.
The most unexpected thing is that this album exists. Around the time of “Laurel Hell,” there was the suggestion that she might be burning out as a musician. She sang of turning 30 and feeling culturally irrelevant. She criticized the industry at the expense of her lowest-rated album to date. I personally found it to be an enjoyable detour from her indie aesthetic, but understood those who would consider it a disappointing farewell. However, I think of “The Land Is Inhospitable” in the same way that I do Lana Del Rey’s “Chemtrails Over the Country Club.” Sometimes the best way to feel inspired is just to get out of town for a few days and remember what being alive is like.
Dubbed her “most American album,” it’s easy to see the subdued nature as reflecting some of her most intimate and vulnerable feelings. She is attached to the land around her, desperately searching for a deeper connection. Even as the songs are doused in loneliness, one can’t help but feel like she’s walking through a forest with her deepest thoughts. If she continues forward long enough, she will become resilient. Maybe she won’t feel connected to nature, but one can hope that she is capable of feeling hospitable in her own body. As the final song’s title “I Love Me After You” would suggest, this is ultimately a self-love journey that is one of a kind.
The evidence can be found from the jump on “Bug Like an Angel.” The environmental images perfectly correlate with how she connects the self with nature. While one would assume that this “bug” is an insect, maybe a beetle or ant crawling across a table, it could simply be anxiety to pick up the glass and begin drinking. She declares “Sometimes a drink feels like family.” In the first disorienting moment of the album, the audio picks up a startling few decibels as an unknown choir joins in on “Family.” While alcoholism often starts from a place of community, it’s likely that she speaks from a place of isolation, using the drink as a form of escapism. With the choir singing in a peaceful register, it’s easier to believe that the choir is less people she’s in the room with than the vices in her mind. As she would sing “They break you right back.” Given that it ends with repentance while “bent over/wishin’ it was over,” you can’t help but feel like this is meant as a story of redemption. Maybe the land isn’t hospitable, but just her disposition of survival.
I love how the album continues with the Courtney Love-esque harmonies of “Buffalo Replaced” capturing an angst she’s developed for the world. Again, the song opens with insect imagery as she declares “Mosquitoes can enjoy me.” Whereas Mitski begins from somewhere insular, she has moved on stumbling through a world that feels like a mountain town. Her iconography is brilliant as she observes “Someone out here burnin’ something/Kids feeling alive.” She recognizes how industrialization has replaced the buffalo as if creating the first real barrier between her and the surroundings. She references highways and trains as if everyone is traveling away. Meanwhile, she contemplates whether the buffalo is self-sustainable. Is she the buffalo or is she sympathizing with nature to not disappear? Like the opener, it ends with a harmonized “Ooh” that suggests this is an extension of herself.
Following the introduction of an intimate other in “Heaven,” I think that the album reaches its most sublime corners on the achingly tragic “I Don’t Like My Mind.” The acoustic guitar barely hides her weepy vocals. Having the song recall her getting desperate enough to eat a whole cake on Christmas is reflecting on self-sabotaging behavior that pollutes her body. The quiver in her voice is unnerving and perfectly captures the equivalent of a mental breakdown. She has regrets about how out of control her mind is. This is the mission statement. In a moment of irony, she declares that “I blast music loud” in order to drown her thoughts out. The excess and codependence on self-destructive behaviors are well-worn by this point and by the end she is once again bent over in sickness. It’s a brilliant lyrical definition of depression that she’s able to cleverly declare that “So please don’t take this job from me,” as if it’s her livelihood. I love this song because it captures a side of isolation that is unflattering and rarely spoken of so candidly. It’s ugly and painful, just like her cries over the outro, and you can’t help but recognize her sincerity.
The next track feels like the post-binge regret leading to a sense of change. “The Deal” begins as “a midnight walk alone.” She is in nature and recognizes how it speaks to her. Even as she declares “I want someone to take this soul/I can’t bear to keep it,” she is crying out to some force above to cure her. At this point, nature is a force against her. The music is also calmer than it has been, as if the sound has faded away and she’s left with her thoughts. Even as she recounts that “nothing replied,” she notices a bird watching her from a streetlight. It’s a nice pseudo-religious reference of seeing the light as if she’s finding salvation. The deal she speaks of is to free herself of the cage of self-loathing and fly away. By the end, she sings with the most hope she has on the album up to this point.
Another high point on the album is “When Memories Snow.” While it may complement “Heaven,” it’s far less mournful. Instead, she finds the nature lyrics overpowering her self-criticism. She sings of how “memories snow and cover up the driveway,” as if hiding everything else in her life. She sees it everywhere, even “hear them in the drainpipe.” This is some great personification in another quiet song. Still, it’s clear that she’s engaging with her past in a very personal way. The idea of placing the snow around a home allows for the ambiguity to become something powerful as the listener imagines their own experience with friends running around a house, putting their footprint into the snow. It ends with maybe the most optimistic ending of any song so far, “listenin’ to the thousand hands/That clap for me in the dark.” There’s this perfect mix of nature and the mind molding in such a way that shows her becoming more in tune with her surroundings. Also, the fact that it ends with the snow melting suggests that the coldness is lifting and she’s allowing warmth into her life. The darkness is less daunting than it was back on “I Don’t Like My Mind.” Now it’s about finding the light.
That can be found in “My Love Mine All Mine” as she opens with a look up at “a hole of light” known as the moon. She recounts that her love is hers as she recounts one of the first examples of connection to humanity. As she recounts “My baby here on earth/Showed me what my heart was worth,” she recalls what it meant to feel passion for someone. I love how the chorus is one of the simplest, but it’s the most assertive in its gentleness. She declares “Nothing in the world belongs to me/But my love, mine all mine” as if accepting the things she can and can’t control. I love this section of the album less because it’s the calmest, but because it feels like the optimistic view of independence. What begins as a lack of control comes to symbolize a chance to learn what self-worth is. This plays like a ballad that may be about someone else, but it’s also about herself. It’s a lesson that some might think should’ve come sooner, but for those who have mental illness, the placement makes perfect sense.
Mirroring this is the next song “The Frost,” which references “Now the world is mine alone.” Again, she sings of her memories. Given that they’re placed alongside snow imagery, there’s the sense that they’re waiting to dethaw and reveal something greater. They may dissipate, but they will return. It’s about the longing for a connection to share a moment with. By the end, she has the substantial revelation that “You’re my best friend/Now I’ve no one to tell/How I lost my best friend.” Maybe the attic that the final verse plays in is meant to symbolize a brain or where a box of photographs would be stored. It’s the recognition of something clearer. There is a life full of wonderful moments. Even if she ends by calling herself “witness-less me,” there’s a playfulness that suggests humor. This continues on “Star,” which looks more into a photograph and recalls a loved one and how “I’ll keep a leftover light burnin’ so you can keep lookin’ up.” Again, it’s waiting for the ice to melt so that she can access the outside world.
The penultimate track is “I’m Your Man” which finds her returning to a world of regret. It parallels the opener by saying “You’re an angel/I’m a dog/Or you’re a dog/And I’m your man.” Whatever the dynamic is, she talks brutally of how she treated people wrong. She sings forcefully, but not with anger. Instead, it’s regret as she lists off several contradictions among apologies, noticing how a well-intentioned relationship ends in sadness. Still, the acknowledgment that “Others were never to blame after all” reveals the growth she’s made over the entire work. By letting go of this grief, she can hope to begin developing inner strength. There’s no more finger-pointing. She’s found herself comparing herself to nature as if she’s found the connection she’s needed this entire time.
The closer is the most striking song to me on the album. While there’s been bigger emotions and more provocative lyrics, “I Love Me After You” ties things together in unsuspecting manners. The first is that, melodically, it doesn’t sound like it belongs with the others. Given that Mitski is a Japanese immigrant, the idea of her borrowing a melody that is meditative and feels in tune with Japanese music captures the fusion of her identity with the American land that is hopeful and immersive. The lyrics feature lines like “Spritz my face with toner,” which suggest the snow has melted and the memories have become a positive extension of herself. Her face glistens with joy. Also, the parallel of “Cool water in a glass” to the opening’s alcoholic imagery shows the power of sobriety and how it can lead to clarity. She gently declares “Curtains are open/Let the darkness see me.” She’s not afraid of her trauma but instead knows how to live with it. She ends by declaring “I’m king of all the land” before returning to the most familiar repetition of the album. The innocuous “Ooh” returns. This time it’s less from a place of pain and more acceptance. This is it. She is happy with herself at last, connected to the world around her.
I love everything about this album and ranks alongside Lana Del Rey and Christine and the Queens as one of my favorite albums of the year. It may not be the longest journey that music has provided this year, but it allows for an immediate relisten that forces one to notice the provocation that she’s put into every line. The moments last as long as they need to, and they pack so much emotion that almost request the listener to press pause and parse over every line. I may have only liked it on the first listen, but the more that I find the symbolism melding with the lyrical growth from start to finish, one could be lucky to make a record as clairvoyant as this. In a time where society, specifically America’s, feels intrinsically nihilistic, it’s amazing to see that Mitski is reaching towards moving forward and becoming someone greater. It was easy to believe that “Laurel Hell” would’ve left her in disappointment, but here she digs herself out and finds something greater waiting for her. More than anything, it makes you long for what her next project could be. It’s as painful as it is inspirational, capturing the power of what a true artist spends their career searching for. If you’re able to come to the end and find yourself loving yourself more than you did a half hour ago like I did, then it’ll be a journey well worth taking.
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