Many of us use music as a way to express ourselves, tune in to, or take a break from all the things we feel every day, and Mitski is just one of those artists that a lot of people use to do so. Listeners now have some new material with her newest album, “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We.”

This album, like many of her other albums, has been beautifully written and composed. The album shows a new side to her music, presenting what she calls her “most American album.”  Usually, Mitski’s songs have a lot of bass, such as in “First Love/Late Spring” from one of her earlier albums titled Bury Me at Makeout Creek. However, for this album, she decided to take a more acoustic route that makes the album feel more personal in order to show an evolution in her music. 

Songs from the album, such as “When Memories Snow,” represent how we force ourselves to push away the harshest memories in order to carry on with everyday life, and Mitski sings it in such a beautifully poetic and cinematic way. This is exactly why the line “When memories snow and cover up the driveway, I shovel all those memories. Clear the path to drive to the store” resonates the most out of the album for 10th grader Soluna Aldana. 

In the first song of the album, “Bug Like an Angel,” she uses a combination of raw and emotional lyrics, harmonies, and acoustics to create a sound that really touches your heart. Mitski was very purposeful in what words had the most impact vocally. In the song, she included an impactful harmony, because the word “family” itself is complicated and impactful. 

Jesse Lopez, an 11th grader at Mark Keppel and an avid Mitski streamer, says “She is almost like an outlet, she reminds me that I’m not alone in how I feel or how I think.” Mitski’s lyrics are astonishing, as they tell the stories of many different perspectives that so many different people can connect with. 

Throughout the album we follow one person and have the opportunity to see parts of their life that are most personal; the parts of themselves they would never want anyone else to see. The parts people connect to the most because the things we bury the deepest within ourselves are the ones that usually mean the most to us. When someone digs them up, we deeply connect with it and feel less alone in our scary thoughts and feelings. Mitski has the ability to let people see the hardest parts of themselves through her music.