I have been sitting on US artist Mitski’s latest offering for a while now, not because I didn’t think it would be good, but because I knew it would be too good for any mood that wasn’t the right mood.
Mitski’s songs have a particular tendency to tunnel through you and take up residence right where you’re hurting the most, she’s aching and agony with a cool, dripping voice and throbbing bass guitar. “Puberty 2”, her most recent album (out 2016, Dead Oceans) promises by title to be an excruciating and laboursome emotional journey, made all the more painful by the fact that this isn’t your first rodeo; you know all about getting your first period, sprouting your first pube, and developing your first nasty, tear-jerking crush.
Of course, “Puberty 2” is not literally about hormonal changes and growing pains, but it does hurt. The opening track is ominously titled “Happy”. It’s a carnivalesque, sweetly melodic sojourn. “Happy” comes to visit, and he brings “cookies on the way”, but when he leaves, Mitski softly mourns, all that remains are “cookie wrappers and empty cups of tea” she has to clean.
Where Mitski’s last album, “Bury Me at Makeout Creek” is flowing vocal parts and creeping instrumentation, “Puberty 2” is jagged and raw, nothing spared. “I Bet on Losing Dogs” is perhaps the most melancholy track of 2016, I can’t listen to it without a wistful splintering sensation radiating from the pit of my stomach. It’s a slow crooner, the kind of murmured pop song one expects from Mitski. She sings, “I bet on losing dogs/ I know they’re losing/ and I pay for my place/ by the ring/ where I’ll be looking in their eyes when they’re down”. It’s devastating, dogs running, dogs losing, girls loving, girls losing. The chorus is metaphor, but the verses are plain spoken, almost embarrassingly honest. I feel my fists clench when Mitski utters those heartsick words, “tell your baby that I’m your baby”.
While this album is in good measure heartbreak, it is also a furious examination of self-actualisation, of introspection, and of unending frustration with the world outside of the self. “My Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars” portrays a tortured relationship to art, the kind that pushes you to continue all the while crushing you with self-doubt, debilitating expectation, ambition, and disappointment.
Mitski near screams over wailing guitars, “I better ace that interview/ I better ace that interview/ I should tell them that I’m not afraid to die/ I better ace that interview”. She is so aware of every pressure point, every personal torment, and every well-placed distorted chord and chiming vocal run. Mitski’s album is the perfect blend of lyricism and complimentary composition. She is a formidable songwriter and performer, and “Puberty 2” demonstrates with flare that the artist doesn’t have to be fully formed, fully realised, there is always the chance they will be remade, and even then, even in transition, there is still room for power.