Album Review :: Mitski - Bury Me At Make Out Creek

Mitski

Bury Me At Make Out Creek

November 11 2014 (Double Double Whammy)

9/10

Words: Linn Branson

If this is not a major contender for album of the year I'll be jiggered. Gradually dripping tracks over the last months, Mitski Miyawaki ensured she was going to have an eager, and captive, audience for the full ten tracks' worth of third full-length release. And oh, the lady has not disappointed one bit.

This follow-on from 2012's 'LUSH' and last year's 'Retired from Sad, New Career in Business', experiments in minimalism and chaotic song-structures, coming across a little more off-kilter than the previous efforts, but also much more controlled and polished. For this outing the Brooklyn-based artist has produced perhaps what is her finest collection of work to date.

From the use of theremin, tambourine, quirky vocals in the snappy beat and 90s fuzz of 'Townie' to the soaring, yet resigned, vocal that is in place on 'I Don't Smoke', against a bank of fuzzy, wailing reverb, you have to sometimes think how does this all work so well together, when such disparities would amount to a cacophonous clash elsewhere.

'Bury Me...' cannot be called a 'romantic' album, yet it is does encompass the spectrum of emotion, and each track is both diverse, yet strikes a cohesive unity through vulnerability and reflective lyrical observation. From the acoustic guitar plucks of 'Texas Reznikoff', as it is opined, "But I’ve been anywhere and it’s not what I want/I wanna be still with you” - before it crashes into a feedback assault - to 'Townie's' “I want a love that falls as fast as a body from the balcony/I wanna kiss like my heart is hitting the ground", and "I was so young when I behaved 25" from lead single, ripe in heart-breaking uncertainty and moody keyboards, 'First Love / Late Spring', every word and melody is Mitski pointing out...life; like a diary journal, detailing life's realities. With producer and engineer Patrick Hyland at the helm, each track is bound together like free-flowing pages of a personal life story.

Closing track 'Last Words Of A Shooting Star' give us nothing more than Mitski’s vocal presence and a finger-picked guitar, to send an ambient swell of emotion over a song about mortality. Which is not something this adept artist need contemplate too closely, for 'Bury Me...' heralds the birth of a very bright star.