Mitski - Bury Me At Makeout Creek

"Though not necessarily nostalgia, the sound of Bury Me at Makeout Creek is inventive and resourceful in a '90s-indie way. The choruses here soar like power pop, but are subdued by tempo and fidelity, while cheap drum machines are deployed as much for their tone as their rhythm. And even when Bury Me has full band arrangements, everything calls attention to the narrator's loneliness—awkwardly thumbed basslines, slapdash drumming, a mocking chorale on "Carry Me Out", organ drones that could pass for someone nodding off on the keys. But anything that gives you the sense of amateurism or self-defeat has intent and purpose. As tempting as it is to praise Bury Me at Makeout Creek by trying to quantify its intangibles—charm, relatability—the craft here is obvious, as is the accruing confidence of someone who’s developed a compelling voice in obscurity. Mitski can lay on the emo melodrama ("One word from you/ And I would jump off of this ledge I'm on, baby") just enough so things aren’t too real and mundane, and while these songs are first-person and personal, they're meant for an audience. It’s fitting to see a mutual respect between herself and Joyce Manor, whose Never Hungover Again is a similarly fantastic record of pop gems about choosing self-pity over feeling nothing at all and finding a kind of pleasurable agency in it. And as a result, Mitski Miyawaki is starting to gain a bit of separation from her band; Bury Me at Makeout Creek still sounds like a breakthrough even if nothing’s coming up Mitski in these songs." -Pitchfork