Returning to the spotlight with a sight in mind, 'Laurel Hell' is Mitski's hopeful record amidst music creation and relationship turmoils.
For the longest time until today, I’ve been able to appreciate Mitski but not outright loving her material. A great songwriter that can portray numbness, frustrations, and dour musings in her stories surrounding feminine identities, fluctuating relationships, and innermost crisis’ in a way that is plainspoken but mature enough to hit through. But the compositions and song lengths can usually put her strengths as a writer and performer in stumbles, and that’s usually what kept me away from loving her records thus far.
But ‘Laurel Hell’ is a different step for Mitski, as her process of the music industry and music creation just after she stopped doing her thing in 2019 has allowed her to dip through sentiments that are finally moving away from that dourness that she was waded in her past records. In this record, you can see that even in her still yearnings and introspective struggles in both relationships and the process of being a musician, there is a sense of control, hope, and joy that comes with it. Where even when there are songs that can call back to her dour musings, you can finally tell that she is in a place where she could come out of that situation in a peaceful, and happy light.
And that sentiment really shows through in the production and composition, where the synth-pop aesthetics that she teased in ‘Be the Cowboy’ is finally embraced as the sharper synths, programmed beats, and slight bass presence is on full display. While the issues in this production mostly come with how there could be more dynamic flow towards some of these songs and some mixing issues here and there, most of the tracks may as well be some of Mitski’s most cohesive, most catchy, and most punchy tracks to date. ‘The Only Heartbreaker’ may as well be her poppiest song to date as the low-end rhythms supplement the roaring synths, ‘Heat Lightning’ with its warming guitar passages and sweeping, twittering synth-scapes, ‘Love Me More’ is a wonderful follow up to ‘The Only Heartbreaker’ as its yearning is wondrously captured thanks to the propulsive synth and drum work, ‘There’s Nothing Left for you’ with its gleaming synths that eventually builds up to a grand crescendo, ‘Stay Soft’ with its stable and passionate soundscapes, ‘Working for the Knife’ with its clanking percussion and noisy guitars, ‘I Guess’ with its spare synth line that works wondrously, and ‘That’s Our Lamp’ ending the record with a joyful outlook as the synths modulate against the bass groove and shuffling drums.
It did not push through after giving this a few listens, but it eventually warmed up on me as time went on. While people might not be crazy about this record unlike her past releases, there is a sense of polish and refreshing growth that Mitski is still honing these days. And it is a growth that is worth looking forward to, in a record that she will make in her own joyful terms of course.
Favorite Tracks: The Only Heartbreaker, Love Me More, Heat Lightning, Stay Soft, That’s Our Lamp, There’s Nothing Left for you, Working for the Knife, I Guess
Least Favorite Track: Everyone