Mitski Is Back With Laurel Hell and This Time It’s on Her Own Terms

Four years ago, Mitski hit new commercial heights. The experience made her think she was done, but she finds out otherwise on her "comeback" record.

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Laurel Hell is an album that wasn’t supposed to happen.

After breaking into the indie mainstream with her fourth record, Puberty 2, Mitski Miyawaki achieved pop star status with the concept album follow-up, Be the Cowboy, in 2018. By attaining her dreams of musical success, Mitski found herself in a nightmare. Between touring, navigating the music industry, and self-imposed expectations to keep performing at such a high level, the Japanese-American songwriter was burnt out. At a New York City show three years ago, Mitski pulled straight from The Beatles playbook and surprised the indie world by announcing it would be her last show.

Mitski followed suit with social media, leaving it behind for her management team to run with a devoted fanbase that sometimes teeters on toxicity. It wasn’t just criticism that Mitski was struggling with, but also her perceived perfection. In a recent interview with PBS, Mitski says:

I'm not on social media. I very thankfully have a manager who runs my social mediums. I think it got really unhealthy very quickly for me to have access to thousands, tens of thousands of strangers opinions of me and whether it's positive or negative feedback, I mean, obviously, no one wants to hear mean things, but also all the sort of aggrandizing, strangely worshipful commentary about me, it doesn't make any sense, and it's not good for my self-image like I can't read that and then go through my life with the commentary in my mind that there are people who think I am perfect and great. It just doesn't– It's not good.

Cultural enigmas like Mitski don’t often easily disappear, though. Returning with Laurel Hell, Mitski documents her self-imposed isolation and clawing her way back to the spotlight, whether she’s ready for it or not, a lyrical theme throughout the synth-drenched record culled from soaring 80s pop.

The lead single “Working for the Knife” is an excellent introduction to Laurel Hell, an album named after a folksy term that describes being trapped in the inescapable thickets of laurel found throughout the southern Appalachian Mountains. Under the factory clank of a beat and droning melodies, Mitski sings about the loss of childhood dreams and facing “the knife” as an adult tossed in the grind.

Even when delivering a bonafide pop hit like the album’s centerpiece like “The Only Heartbreaker,” Laurel Hell lyrically stays confessional as the narrator looks for an out in a relationship. Full of synth hooks, the song is the only one to feature writing credits besides Mitski, co-written by Dan Wilson of middle school favorites Semisonic, who has found a second career writing megahits like Adele’s “Someone Like You.”

When working through synthpop numbers like “Love Me More” and the outstanding “Stay Soft,” Mitski is at her strongest on Laurel Hell. Unfortunately, the songs outside of that scope don’t always land. For every great song like the opener “Valentine, Texas” and its floating synth orchestras, there are lethargic songs like “Everyone” and “I Guess,” which sound incomplete in their development. “That’s Our Lamp” ends the album on a high note, a funky modern disco number that is unlike anything in Mitski’s catalog and may offer an indication of where she is going next.

Producer and longtime Mitski collaborator Patrick Hyland deserves credit as well for his production and mixing work on Laurel Hell, giving an open landscape for the emotional truths in Mitski’s lyrics room to breathe. The record is also a refreshing take on 80s synth throwbacks, a sound fully explored in the past decade. If this album is your thing, be sure to listen to Bat for Lashes’ previous two records, The Bride and Lost Girls, which finds Natasha Khan perfecting the cinematic synth pallet that Mitski paints with on Laurel Hell.

Mitski taking the time for her mental health is commendable when the music industry demands constant public availability to stay commercially viable. Laurel Hell is an excellent reintroduction for an artist destined to have her audience grow again if she’s found a way to wrestle with everything that comes along with the notion. After a sold-out solo tour, she’ll be hitting the road to open for Harry Styles on the arena level, and Laurel Hell says she’ll be a household name.

Laurel Hell is available on Dead Oceans.