Mitski – The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We

Noticed, collected, and created over the course of several years, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We is a sweeping musical epic spanning essential facets of human experience; a meditation on self-witnessing, of owning one's estrangement. 

The album alienates and reincorporates the self. In a somewhat less literal mode, Mitski focuses on herself through varied fictional voices. Each track is a chapter of an unfinished story. In the album's first act, Mitski offers up the devastatingly relatable experience of feeling to blame for our own loneliness. In I Don't Like My Mind, Mitski's literary voice and musical acumen combine into pure feeling. Vomiting up unwelcome memories, the track's narrator touches a nerve that only Mitski can: 'A whole cake, so please don't take / Take this job from me', is a knife to the heart; it's a staggeringly concrete plea from someone at rock-bottom, someone who would rather work than recover. Sometimes it feels like our only choice. 

The album is far-reaching but never vague – true to form, Mitski's writing remains supremely evocative, mesmerising. Mitski writes and performs with singular conviction, reflecting the bargains we make with ourselves as we march determinedly towards self-destruction. The album is built by community – bolstered by a choir, Mitski's uninhibited voice envelops the listener. My Love Mine All Mine wraps itself around the self-effacing core of the album; it's a gentle anthem, a reminder of what we own and what we can let go. Here, Mitski offers up a balm for our open wounds in a gentle, honest cadence. Her commentary is always genuine, never cloying – it feels like talking to an old friend after a long separation. My Love Mine All Mine acts as a fulcrum for the album, teetering towards a more hopeful, reflective narrative voice. 

While the album expresses plenty of Mitski's signature melancholia, it is undergirded not by regret, but by memory. The album is a personification of hope and self-love, told through the deep roots of compassion. In a media landscape saturated by sanitised, cloying depictions of self-love, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We is a brutally honest chronicle of the eternal challenge of simply liking oneself. The album is truly extraordinary – it is a once-in-a-career masterpiece that synthesises difference through abstracted self-observation. It is a vehicle for making meaning, an invitation to try again. 

Listen to: Heaven, The Deal, I’m Your Man