(Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/David Lee)
Mitski’s seventh studio album is a beautiful contemplation of the complexities of living in a world that so often feels like it is ending. The singer released “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We” on Sept. 15, just a year and half after she released “Laurel Hell” (2022), Mitski’s previous album. As a whole, the album fits neatly into her discography, employing the mix of malaise and adoration one comes to expect from Mitski.
On this album in particular, Mitski seems concerned with endings — the end of love, the end of a life, even the end of a song. The album’s very title implies a hopelessness and dread, connecting Mitski’s anxious introspection to our current political, social and ecological upheaval. She seems to speak directly to a feeling that the world is ending. It is a sentiment that, for Mitski, manifests not only in the broadest scale of the Earth, but in the microcosm of individual daily experience: in the quiet observation of the sounds of a summer evening, as we hear in the song “Buffalo Replaced,” or in falling in and out of love with another person, a topic she explores on tracks like “My Love Mine All Mine” and “Star.”
However, the hopelessness of the title is in tension with a quiet reverence on tracks like “Heaven.”
“Now I bend like a willow / Thinkin’ of you,” Mitski sings. “Like a murmurin’ brook / Curvin’ about you / As I sip on the rest of the coffee / You left / A kiss left of you.”
Mitski’s voice is soft and angelic as she sings these lines. There is a sense of calm and ease that is enhanced in the twang of the steel guitar that envelopes the listener, mirroring the way our singer curves around her lover. It is just this kind of a moment that brings us out of the dread and anxiety of a track like “I Don’t Like My Mind” or “The Deal” and into the peace that love provides.
“The dark awaits us / All around the corner,” Mitski hums. “But here in our place / We havе for the day / Can we stay awhile and listеn for / Heaven?”
Indeed, it is this awareness of the inevitability of endings and darkness and Mitski’s plea for a refuge from the burden of this knowledge that forms the current that runs through “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We.” This feeling of dread can and must coexist with feelings of peace and love.
Furthermore, the music itself is stunning. Mitski is deliberate in the arrangements of each song, like on the loud, big band moments of “When Memories Snow” and “The Deal” which give her a prophetic voice that empowers Mitski in moments when she might feel the most small. But Mitski balances these moments with songs like “Heaven” or “Star,” which both exude a warm haziness that surrounds the listener. We feel the love that Mitski feels.
She even situates these moments of empowerment and meditation within the same song, as in “Bug Like an Angel.” For example, in the line “Sometimes, a drink feels like / family,” Mitski is alone with her guitar for the first section before a resounding chorus joins her, repeating the word “family.” Suddenly she is not alone in her suffering, and we feel the power of that community and love surrounding her. She submerges us in a bath of glorious sound.
Mitski’s ability to balance loud and soft sounds in such a way that neither overwhelms the other enhances the quality of her songwriting. She is incredibly deliberate, allowing chaos only if it is in conversation with quiet reflection. By setting these two extremes against each other throughout the album, we get a sense of the tension between the singer’s noisy emotional turmoil and the serenity of her love. In fact, without this contrast, both of the two extremes would lose their power — each heightens the other. Once again, Mitski shows us how two opposing forces can exist simultaneously.
“The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We” is in line with what I have come to expect from Mitski. It is melancholic, poetic and deeply ambivalent about the questions and stories it poses. It is wonderfully self-conscious, from its introspective lyrics about the selfish desires of an individual to its thoughtful meditations on love and devotion. Mitski possesses all the wisdom of an angsty philosopher who recognizes the deep flaws within herself and the world around her, and yet she still cannot help but sing its praises.
Bridget Mackie (she/her) (25C) is from Cary, North Carolina and majoring in English. Outside of the Wheel, Bridget likes to make art, knit sweaters and collect plants.
