Announced as America’s best selling album of the week, Laurel Hell is Mitski’s comeback album after taking a hiatus from her career and the public eye. The title of the album originates from a Southern Appalachians folk term, where if one travels into a laurel bush thicket, they will never be able to escape. Revered in Greek mythology, laurel flowers are known for being very beautiful. Mitski said she named the album after liking the idea of being trapped inside the thickets, surrounded by an explosion of beautiful flowers and dying within them. Artfully creating an album that encapsulates relationships, self-identity, and toxic careers, Mitski captures the complexities of being human and the variety of struggles one experiences under the guise of life. As an outspoken lover of Mitski (and one of the top 0.05% of her listeners), it seemed obvious that I should review Laurel Hell.
The opener song “Valentine, Texas,” introduces what Mitski wants the listener to understand in this album. Singing about the darkness, or the secrets she hides, Laurel Hell explores not only conflicts, grief and loneliness, but also resilience.
Mitski’s inner turmoil with her career and self identity has been discussed in previous interviews, where she explains how she hates being a consumer product for her fans to worship when that isn’t who she really is. Famously, a fan once declared they loved her to which she responded truthfully, “You don’t know me.” Her feelings about her career is scrutinized in “Working for the Knife,” where she forlornly sings about the death of her creativity under capitalism, crafting the story of having to wake up and lie to yourself about loving your job, when in actuality it is killing you. Like “Working for the Knife,” in “Everyone,” Mitski reflects on how taxing it to be famous and how she wasn’t ready for the burden of her career. This is evident in the lines “And I opened my arms wide to the dark/I said, Take it all, whatever you want/I didn’t know that I was young/I didn’t know what it would take.” However, “Love Me More” delves deeper into her desire for acceptance and love from anyone in order to drown her self-loathing and to feel full. Mitski depicts her struggle with losing her self identity and parasocial relationships in the music video as well.
Writing poetically about relationships is undeniably one of Mitski’s strengths. In “Heat Lightning,” she articulates feelings of insomnia but also her relationship with herself. With anxiety keeping her up until 4 AM, she’s decided that it’s okay if she gives up. Forgiving herself and others is a major turning point for Mitski. “Stay Soft” is about two hurt people who use sex as a coping mechanism and how she believes being vunerable will be your downfall. This song hits close to me because like Mitski, I’m always trying to “harden up” in fear that I will be completely destroyed if I don’t. “There’s Nothing Left Here for You,” “I Guess,” “Should’ve Been Me,” and “That’s Our Lamp” explore the uncharted territories of break ups and how you believe it’s your fault even when you can’t control it. Being emotionally unavailable is something Mitski recognizes within herself and blames herself for forcing her lover to find someone else who reminds them of her. The two break up songs that stood out to me were “The Only Heartbreaker” and “That’s Our Lamp.” Being in a relationship is tough, especially if you feel like you are the bad guy making mistakes every time. However in “The Only Heartbreaker,” Mitski delves deeper into this constant cycle of apologizing and being forgiven, and proposes the idea that maybe you are the only one messing up because they just aren’t trying. (Also fun fact, this was Obama’s favorite song of 2021.) Singing about how people stay for familiarity rather than love, Mitski and her partner have both realized that their time has run out. “That’s Our Lamp ” stood out to me due to personal relatability and at the moment is my favorite song off the album. As the last song on Laurel Hell, I think it’s interesting to see how people believe that this is actually her farewell song to her fans because she’s planning on stepping away from music forever.
Mitski manages to wrangle the intricacy of life into a compact 32 minutes 31 seconds, leaving her fans in anticipation for her next project. Like millions, I will also be waiting for I am forever a Mitski girl at heart.