Mitski: The Land Is Inhospitable & So Are We (indie exclusive, blue vinyl) [DEAD OCEANS]

Why you'll love it

This indie exclusive comes on blue vinyl. "My Love Mine All Mine" became Mitski's first Billboard Hot 100 hit, peaking at No. 26 and reaching the UK top 10, and the album scored 90 on Metacritic.

This edition

• Indie exclusive
• Blue vinyl

About the album

Thank the higher power of your choice that Mitski didn't follow through on her plan to leave the music industry altogether after 2018's Be the Cowboy brought her a taste of pop stardom she wasn't sure she wanted. Because, frankly, she's just gotten better, and more Mitski, since. The Land Is Inhospitable & So Are We takes a pronounced step back from the gauzy electro-textures of her 2022 comeback LP Laurel Hell, settling into a dreamy, acoustic-leaning soft-rock space that could have wafted in from Laurel Canyon in the 1970s.

It's still a Mitski record, of course, so there's plenty of emotional turmoil, existential dread and self-skewering wit to go around, with the strings and the choir she welcomes into the subdued, occasionally PJ Harvey-esque proceedings here and there. But seven albums into her fascinating career, Mitski finds a way to surprise us once again, this time by laying it all out there in an intimate and unadorned space.

Patrick Hyland produced it at the Bomb Shelter in Nashville and Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, with a 17-person choir Mitski arranged herself and an orchestra led by Drew Erickson. She might be uncomfortable with being an outlier pop star, but we need pop stars like Mitski to keep us believing.

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Tracklist

Listen

On Dead Oceans (cat# DOC 350), the 2023 album.