Mitski Miyawaki, a Japanese-American indie singer-songwriter who goes by the stage name Mitski and is known for hits such as “Francis Forever” and “Washing Machine Heart,” released her seventh studio album, “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We” this past Friday, Sept. 15. The entirety of the album is written by Mitski and produced by Patrick Hyland. The first single to kick off the new album announcement, “Bug Like an Angel,” came out July 26, with the songs “Star” and “Heaven” being released together on Aug. 23.
With a worldwide streaming release as well as early listening parties around the globe, fans were eager to get another album after she broke her four-year release hiatus last year with the acclaimed album “Laurel Hell.” Mitski went on tour for countless sold-out audiences, bringing her more into the mainstream after her popularity on social media surged her music into the playlists of young, new listeners. In a Rolling Stone cover story last year, Mitski expressed that her struggles as a music artist come from a sense of losing parts of herself to the music industry’s consumer culture. For “Laurel Hell,” her attitude towards performing was that, “I have to do this even though it hurts me, because I love it.” Now in her explanation video for a new song, “My Love All Mine All Mine,”she proclaims, “To love is the best thing I ever did in my life. Better than any song I’ve ever written, better than any achievement by far. To love is truly the best and most beautiful thing I ever did.” This shift to using music as both an attempt to immortalize her love and a way to investigate the mortal incapability of being able to love forever mark this new album’s emotional depths. There are five songs as of writing this that have similar videos on her YouTube channel: “Buffalo Replaced,” “My Love Mine All Mine,” “Star,” “Heaven” and “Bug Like An Angel,” each filmed in BombShell Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, where most of the album was recorded.
The first single released, “Bug Like An Angel,” is a perfect selection to introduce the new sonic and lyrical world of “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We.” The stripped-down instrumentation of guitar and piano alongside the sudden loud choir gives the auditory landscape of a church. This mirrors the music video, which features Mitski playing guitar with a group of people next to her, all in long blue robes, soundtracking an older woman’s chaotic drunken walk down a street. The pair of singles released together, “Star” and “Heaven,” are both songs that Mitski had been reworking for years. Both of these songs from the past lyrically concentrate on love. “Heaven” is described by Mitski in the “Behind the Song” video as the closest to a love song out of the entire tracklist. “Heaven” features a heavy lean into a Western sound with a swinging beat followed with powerful guitar chords, and the addition of a grand string section adds to the drama and romance.
The songs “Buffalo Replaced” and “The Frost” are also coupled on the album. The two pieces form an ambiguous tale of the narrator alone with their dog, and what happens when the dog dies and the narrator is left alone with their existential thoughts. Only Mitski could bring such sorrow to the line, “She shits where she’s supposed to, feeds herself while I’m away,” which may end up representing the catatonic state of the narrator if left completely alone. In her Spotify bio, written by Will Arbery, Mitski is quoted as saying, “This is my most American album,” which is reflected in the desolate descriptions of loneliness and nature in the two pieces.
What I think of as the Vassar Student Anthem is “I Don’t Like My Mind,” the first verse packing an emotional punch with “I blast music loud, and I work myself to the bone.” It perfectly encapsulates mental illness and the subsequent struggles with productivity. While short in duration, the song makes the message loud and clear for its listener, the driving concept behind an album full of vivid, intimate emotions and soundscapes without much breathing room.
The closer to the record, “I Love Me After You,” continues the dark Western image the album has been defined by. However, this song probably has the least clear lyrical meaning. While there is imagery of walking naked by a window and being king of all the land, if the land is inhospitable, what is the “king” really ruling over? The narrator’s domain may be the lonely darkness where nothing can survive. Thus, they are left to a despondent existence where no one can reach them; if someone does breach into the heart of the narrator, they may abandon them through death or being consumed by their problems.
This album is so important to the time and place in which it is being released. Even though the songs have not all been written recently, the themes of loneliness, emotional struggle, death and despair are especially pertinent to a time dictated by lack of connection. Isolation and the crushing weight of a timed existence in which to love and care for others are themes prominent throughout the project. This album speaks to the pain of being human, examining the limit on how much we can love, hurt and be alone with our own thoughts.