Laurel Hell

If anything, then Mitski proves that she can still very much bare it all emotionally, even within an unexpected instrumental blast from the past. However, the best moments of this album are found by delving into its more avant-garde impulses.

Mitski narrates us into ‘Laurel Hell’ with ‘Valentine, Texas’, an opener with just a haunting organ bassline accompanying her slightly echoing voice at first. A minute into the song, a much broader sound palette explosively steps in and the narrative of ‘stepping into the dark’ becomes more vivid - giving us a glimpse of the album’s nature to be dissected in the following songs.

“Stay Soft” has somewhat of a classical approach when you consider its grotesque undertones - the lyrics obviously referring to darker sexual undertones, but the soundscape being more of an outtake from the dancefloor, which is where the two seeming polarities meet in real life: take pretty much every late-night encounter in a nightclub ending with a one-night stand for example. Of course, the song is a double entendre in itself, telling an age-old story of how people use a little more than meaningless physical closeness to shut out their real, unaddressed feelings. I can’t help but wonder what the original intrumental outcome for this song could’ve been, since Mitski herself said that it was a more straightforward, grungy rock tune at first.

The second half of the album is less of a stand-out for me, with some songs a little interchangeable with each other, but there are still considerable gems.
“Love Me More”, a seemingly uncharacteristic track from Mitski, was my favourite out of all the singles. And alright, maybe there was a moment during “Should’ve Been Me”, where the slogan “Heartbreak - now funkier than ever!” popped into my head, but nevertheless, the song is still very much enjoyable.

As the audience has probably come to expect something different from Mitski, this album full of upbeat 80s colours is a welcome surprise, giving the album elements of theatricality and a certain cinematic approach. Some are possibly disappointed since it’s very different from “Be The Cowboy” in some aspects, but I personally find “Laurel Hell” to be a fresh breath of air.

There is certainly a pretty hefty amount of 80s clichés found on this album, but the thing is that they actually work on here mostly without becoming caricatures of themselves, instead injecting a different quality into the songs (and making them really, really catchy at times - for example, see “Love Me More”, which could fuel dance moves for days to come). And this comes from someone who usually strongly dislikes a lot of popular stuff from the 80s, so to serve musical references from this era in a pleasant way is a great achievement from my point of view.

This is obviously a matter of personal taste, but I think I might at times prefer this album to her previous one. It’s important to note that her lyricism is still very much on the foreground on here as well, it just comes in a different kind of package (but should in no way be dismissed because of that). I certainly don’t think that Mitski has sacrificed the quintessential elements of her music on “Laurel Hell”; it’s still a strong art pop album with an instantly recognisable sound.
For some reason, this album made me strongly think of Berlin-era David Bowie.. most likely because of the synths.

favourites: Valentine, Texas; Stay Soft; Love Me More; Should’ve Been Me