The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We

ALBUM OF THE FUCKING YEAR IS HERE, SORRY CAROLINE BUT MITSKI JUST HAD ONE OF THE BEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME, OF ALL TIME!!!
So Mitski’s been one of the first artists I’ve really gotten into, and remained one of my all time favorite singer-songwriters. I was originally introduced to her by my sister a few years ago, before really getting into her after going to her concert for the Laurel Hell tour back in March of last year, in which I didn’t really know a single song of hers other than Nobody (which is amazing btw) and it was almost surreal for me for that reason, but she performed songs from all across her entire discography during that show and I consistently was able to notice her fantastic, poetic, yet also very delicate songwriting ability, and her insane ability at creating some really really amazing and memorable melodies that stick with you and help the songwriting fully emotionally impact you. Fast forward to way later and her albums Bury Me At Makeout Creek and Puberty 2 are among my favorites of all time. I actually consider BMAMOC in particular to be my 6th fav of all time, right behind Titanic Rising, so that should tell you a LOT. I was one of those Mitski fans defending Laurel Hell and I’ll still defend it, even if it’s got some of her weakest cuts like Everybody on it. But nonetheless, she still could’ve done better, which only had me more excited for this, ESPECIALLY after the singles, which were fucking immaculate, particularly after Heaven and Star, which just blew me away. And yeah… this shit completely lived up to the hype and so much more

The production on here is very folky with a tiny bit of country influence, and often very very grand and rich with all these strings, occasional synths, flutes, other shit to expect out of this more chamber poppy sound, but not to this epic, confrontational extent, more just that you really feel it if you’re willing to dig into it. That’s how it is for all of Mitski’s records tbh, none of them really force you to feel them even in really grand, epic, or noisy moments like on her more noise pop oriented indie rock records, but if you’re willing to feel them and really dive into the intricacies of her songwriting, vocal performances and production, then you’re probably gonna be devastated or at least very emotionally impacted. The songwriting here is obviously amazing like always for her, containing all the poetry and delicate qualities that made it so amazing to dive deep into and truly be impacted by for me in the first place. I haven’t even really fully dissected every song lyrically yet, but even on first listen this is already some of her best writing yet, with Bug Like an Angel tackling her issues with addiction and I Don't Like My Mind dealing with something I unfortunately relate too a bit to much, that being the endless cycle of avoiding personal introspection to end how all of the worst memories affect you currently through stupid shit to distract yourself, only creating worse memories in the process instead of just dealing with the bad ones you already have. Like that’s literally my entire fucking life lmao. And even the songs I don’t relate to as much still really touched me. Vocally, her performance is very light and delicate, yet there’s a lot of subtle emotion present like always. If her previous stuff wasn’t really doing it for you vocally I doubt this will either, but this is literally all I wanted. Then there’s the length, which is a major thing for a lot of people with Mitski, since all of her albums are only like 30 minutes and she always has so many ideas to express in that short amount of time, but it’s never been an issue for me cuz I always think she does an amazing job at expressing these ideas so quickly. This album I feel like she really gets out this light, grand, lush sound very quickly very well. I feel like Star in particular, besides being a unique and absolutely gorgeous and transcendental track on the tracklist here, is quite easily able to get out this transcendental art pop sound out really quickly and very easily stun me. So did pretty much every chamber poppy track, and all of the folkier cuts immediately get all of their fantastic ideas across very easily with some of her best melodies yet.

One last thing though, not every release from an artist with a pretty big fanbase with default pfp 100s = bots. There definitely were quite a few bots on the Heaven single ratings, but even after Rob removed those it remained one of the highest rated singles of the year. I feel like there’s a stupid arbitrary double standard for this shit, because this applies to literally every major release of the year, yet mfs on here only seem to be mad about it when it’s female artists with strong fanbases. Like none of this shit even comes close to the PORTALS or Jimin shit, but you mfs act like it’s the only reason it’s rated high, like did you even read the mfing top reviews? All of them are extremely high!!! And yeah there are definitely a few bots, but that’s true for literally every release this year form any artist with a major fanbase. So pls, don’t just tag it cuz you’re pissed it’s rated highly

So yeah, this is literally everything I expected and more, and honestly it’s now my album of the year. I expected Caroline to probably keep that spot, but god this thing is just exquisite, and it’s probably my second fav from her now. Every aspect here just completely did it for me and more, and I can’t wait to listen to this over and over and over like I did with all of my other favorite Mitski albums. In conclusion, she was not MIDski here