“Laurel Hell” by Mitski

Mitski’s newest and long-awaited album is full of ‘80s rock influence and heart-wrenching prose

By: Avery Wageman

Mitski’s sixth album, “Laurel Hell,” is a thematically and sonically cohesive album. It’s brimming with a beautifully curated mix of deeply honest and slightly eerie lyrics blossoming with poetic imagery. If there is one thing you can expect from a Mitski album, it’s a tracklist of songs about heartbreak. “Heat Lightning,” “The Only Heartbreaker,” “Should’ve Been Me,” “I Guess,” and “That’s Our Lamp” are painfully truthful reflections on concluded relationships. 

While her previous albums have often tied synth and electro with deep bass tracks, “Laurel Hell” fully embraces the ‘80s synth sound. “There’s Nothing Left for You” has a dash of dreamy, romantic influence reminiscent of Prince, and  tracks such as “Valentine, Texas,” “Working for the Knife,” and “Love Me More” have wistful and melancholic characteristics of music from Joy Division and The Cure. 

In the track “Everyone,” Mitski ponders the disconnect between her goals and perceptions of her career against others expectations. Similarly, in “There’s Nothing Left for You,” it sounds as though she is contemplating the end of her career and whether she has anything left to give of herself. This is depicted in the song’s epic instrumental crescendo as she belts “You could touch fire/You could fly/It was your right/It was your life.” Then, the music dramatically drops off as she sings in a near whisper, “and then it passed to someone new.”

Mitski has always been able to articulate very specific feelings through her lyrics, and as I near the end of my senior year,  this lyric from “Working for the Knife” particularly resonates with me: “I cry at the start of every movie/ I guess ‘cause I wish I was making things too.”