Mitski’s slightly warbled vocals bring to mind Angel Olsen, and the opening track of Bury Me at Make Out Creek supports this comparison for all of 90 seconds. That’s before the gentle strum and crooned vocals are crumpled into a ball and tossed out of the window, making way for drums and distortion and the thunderous refrain: “you’re the breeze in my Austin nights.”
If the first song has you reeling from unfulfilled expectations, then the rest of the album will sweep you off of your feet. Jumping from a restless speed to a wistful melancholy and back again at the drop of a hat, Mitski challenges the listener’s thoughts on the album the moment they are formed.
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Some artists set out to make a sad record and some set out to make a happy record, some aim for calm or cool or angry or crazy. Mitski flits between it all, less a persona than a person, a conflicted, messy, real person. ‘First Love / Late Spring’ is a dishevelled hymn of doubt and sadness (“wild women don’t get the blues but I find that lately I’ve been crying like a tall child,” she sings), ‘Townie’ is an exasperated statement or plea and ‘Drunk Walk Home’ is fast and angry and ready to get to the bottom of things, a hot, heavy song full of adrenaline and alcohol. It starts with the verse…
“I will retire to the Salton sea
at the age of 23
for I’m starting to learn I may never be free
but though I may never be free
fuck you and your money
I’m tired of your money”
…and snowballs into a maelstrom of distortion and screaming which is marked on the lyrics sheet as “(aaaaaaaa etc)”.
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However, on occasion the transient emotions pale away. The aggression is lost and the melancholy quelled and something else is discovered underneath. ‘I Will’ follows directly after the violent end of ‘Drunk Walk Home’ and sees the anger/despair transformed into hope, the murky shroud dropped to offer a glimpse at her core, a sincerity as fragile as glass and brilliant as a diamond, a fierce promise as much to herself as others:
“and while you sleep
I’ll be scared
so by the time you wake
I’ll be brave
I’ll be brave
I’ll be brave”
But just like the rest, the emotion passes and the album goes on shape-shifting and you are left wondering if you saw the true centre or just another mask. Album closer ‘Last Song of a Shooting Star’ hints at this. “And did you know the liberty bell is a replica,” she asks, “silently housed in its original walls?” Maybe centre is nothing, a blank canvas across which the fleeting emotions dance and die and rise again. Maybe we are just whatever we’re feeling at any given moment. Maybe.
You can buy the album now from Bandcamp or Double Double Whammy.