Mitski - The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We


If you thought Stone Temple Pilots making a Country album was weird, wait 'til you get an earful of Mitski's The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We. It's like if The Caretaker and Lana Del Rey hired a full orchestra and alzheimered the hell out of an Emmylou Harris album. Not literally, it's just so dark and bleak and bass-heavy and orchestrationally cacophonous that it sounds like a grainy black and white Spaghetti Western with dogs barking and Mitski stalking you through the overgrown orchard of an abandoned farmstead like the ghost of a runaway pioneer fugitive wanted dead or alive. Good stuff.

Don't let the ghastly unreadable neon orange typography fool you, this thing is seriously heavy, highly rewarding. It's not Neutral Milk Hotel, but it listens very much like On Avery Island with soft flowing vocals over a sea of turbulent Americana-esque sludge. 

I haven't heard her first 6 albums, the first 2 being her senior project at Purchase College (SUNY), but i'm told they're much more of the indie-rock/orchestra-pop persuasion. Regardless, judging by this album I bet they're pretty great, so I'll definitely be digging deeper into her discography.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 4 Seasons - The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette

Image
This might be my longest  album review ever. But i swear a couple times, so it's worth the read ;) How could i possibly mention Jefferson Airplane, The 4 Seasons, and Frank Zappa in the same context? Zappa said "this is rediculous" and a few years later The 4 Seasons said "you know what, Frank is right. This IS ridiculous." To which Jefferson Airplane said, "Oh. Ok. Got it." The real question is: which one is the most transgressive? Zappa said stop fighting, you look like idiots. Jefferson Airplane said i guess if love and community is a bad thing, then sure we're criminals and we'd be happy to move out into the fields and live peaceful lives without your garbage, let us go already. The 4 Seasons said hold my champagne for a moment. In 1969, The 4 Seasons released the single most ironic, acidic, extravagant, and downright befuddling album ever created, The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. Zappa was accused of writing "shitty doo-w...
Read more

Welcome to my blog, and my record collection.

This is a blog about my love of listening to albums. It started off as a nightly perusal of my dad's record collection (which sadly became mine) on my personal facebook page. Over the last two months it has become quite an enjoyable process of simply ranting about what i think is a real art form, the album. It needs a more permanent home. Some of my reviews are positive, some negative. They might not be what you expect from album reviews, but i hope you at least find them entertaining. For the most part i do very little research, and they tend to be train of thought reactions rather than calculated essays. If nothing else, know that i'm really listening to them and whether they are amazing or abysmal i want you to go listen to them too.  I'll start migrating the 60+ i've written so far over here in the next few days, and hopefully get to the point where i just start writing them here. I'd probably even take suggestions if you're just dying to know my tho...
Read more

J. Geils Band - Freeze Frame

Image
Speaking of New Wave, I just listened to the penultimate J. Geils Band album, Feeze Frame, and it is awesome. You know the title track and Centerfold, but i highly doubt you know the album closer, Piss On The Wall.  It's not even really reviewable, to be honest, it's Freeze Frame, couple songs, Centerfold, couple more songs, and Piss On The Wall. I guess i could rehash what Post-Punk/New Wave New Wave was all about (actual dance club Rock & Roll with quirkily expensive synth leads), but you know The Cars and The Motels and Talking Heads. Believe it or not, the Ramones were considered New Wave rather than Punk in the beginning. Now we'd call them Pop Punk, but the point is that Rock in the late 70s existed on a spectrum from Corporate Cock to Nerdly Neurotic Pocket Protector, and in 1980/81 J. Geils Band said hold my beer, I gotta take a leak, how's this for "radio-friendly, twitchy nerd Rock with huge sing-along choruses?" Freakin' awesome, dude, freak...
Read more