The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, Joe

Even if the music is not really your cup of tea, one of the most fun things you can do in an album review is try to name the "theme" of the album. Know that you can just make something up. We're not worrying about the author here (in this case, Mitski, who always seems like she has her song explainers ready). This is about you, and your interpretation. And the cheat is this: just take a song, figure out what it's really saying, and then apply that to the rest of the album. E.g. "What does X song say about Y album?" Let's test the theory by writing, I dunno, six or seven mini-reviews?

1.

On "The Frost," we hear Mitski, over a pleasant pedal steel guitar, either lament or celebrate loneliness. Seems like she's going through a breakup—"now I've no one to tell / how I lost my best friend"—but it could be anything here. Anything that would cause that feeling of emptiness after the trauma of loss. These themes run through most of the songs on this album—themes of regret, themes of that search for meaning, themes of finding nothing when you're trying to find something. I can imagine how lonely it is, sitting there by yourself, singing your song to no one.

2.

On "Buffalo Replaced," we find Mitski sounding weirdly hopeful. Not that it's weird to feel hopeful in general, but it's just not something that we're used to hearing from Mitski specifically. The driving rhythm (plus that awesome staccato piano note that layers on after the second chorus) make it seem like this is a purposeful endeavor, like Mitski is sweating it out to make the optimism work. Maybe like a sweater that's too tight or something. What are the buffalo replaced with, one might ask? A bigger, better buffalo. Change can be hard, but throughout The Land Is Inhospitable, we hear Mitski doing her absolute best to make that change, and the album is all the better for it.

3.

"The Deal" is the sound of despondence manifested in song. Note how the verses are sad and the chorus seems almost joyful. That's because, in the chorus, our narrator (Mitski) is imagining that all her burdens are lifted. "Will somebody take this soul?" she asks. And she makes the request because she just doesn't want to deal with it anymore. This question looms heavy over The Land Is Inhospitable. Mitski dares ask the question, again and again, what might happen to us, as humans, if we were to just... give it up? On my worst days, I can understand the impulse. To be human means to feel pain, and so maybe not being human might be worth it. If this album is a cycle, then "The Deal" is meant to be that low point before you come back around to some semblance of peace. Hence its place in the middle of the album. Keep your soul, keep the pain, it'll all be worth it in the end.

4.

On album opener "Bug like an Angel," there's what Mitski describes as a "jump scare." It happens at the end of the first verse, when the choir all of a sudden comes in to loudly harmonize the word "family." Why is this a "scare"? I guess because of the context. Mitski is talking about substance abuse, and how it can be passed down through the generations. Of course we can find comfort in family, but what happens when the thing that's killing you in the long run also feels like family in the short-term? The choir underlines the point with its repetition. "A drink feels like family," followed by—"FAMILY!" Expertly designed to wake you from your slumber at the beginning of the album. Feels like Mitski is asking you to keep your wits about you, that she is an unreliable narrator, working her shit out in real time just like we are as we listen. If The Land Is Inhospitable lays out all of Mitski's faults as told by Mitski herself, then the implication is that maybe you should just ride along in the passenger seat instead of looking for any kind of savior.

5.

On "My Love Mine All Mine," Mitski stakes her love to infinity. She says that her love is so large that she doesn't want it to end when she ends, i.e. when she dies. I love this as a slow song, one that you might hold the hips of your own lover during, slowly spinning in circles on the dance floor under soft lighting. And if we take what Mitski is saying here and apply it to the widescreen, then I think we can see the true purpose of Mitski's seventh full-length, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We. Every song on this album is imbued with love, with feeling, with emotion, with everything that Mitski has in that moment of its conception, and by translating that love into song, we are able to hold that love for eternity, long after Mitski herself is gone.

6.

The album closer, "I Love Me After You," finally settles the score. Throughout the entire album, Mitski wonders whether she's going to be okay once everything is over, but here, she finds her answer: "I'm king of all the land." On The Land Is Inhospitable, we find one thousand reasons to give into the pain and destruction and despair, but as they say, all you need is one reason for hope. And here, Mitski finds it. We have taken the slow journey through a despondent mind, and are now at the end of that tunnel, all the better for it.

7.

On "I Don't Like My Mind," there's a certain sense of dramatic irony palpable throughout. "I don't like my mind / I don't like being left alone in a room." And yet here we are, a half hour of Mitski's Thoughts, played through the earbuds in our ears. We know that she doesn't like this, and yet, she's singing what's on her mind anyway, into the lonely microphone. What this might say—about the song, about the album, about the artist—is that there is value in experiencing pain and making that pain known. Empathy, not sympathy, from its audience. Witness the power behind the line "A whole cake, all for me!!" That could be embarrassing, but here, it's cathartic.

No, The Land Is Inhospitable is not the most exciting album, and Mitski has never been the most exciting artist. But the good thing about her work is that there's always a story there. Most days, I'm taking the dumb/fun music over the smart/reserved music, but this was a nice change of pace. The story makes it at least worth checking out. And not to sound like a broken record over here, but it's fun to apply your own story to that of the artist. We see this music with our own lens. That's art, baby.

Do all these mini-review apply, then? Well, according to me and my own personal take on the matter, they do, but maybe you see it differently. That's okay! That's the beauty of Record Club!

For the record, I think that the above reviews are likely to be true in the following order, going from least likely to most likely: 4, 7, 1, 5, 3, 6, 2.

GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5