Heaven knows what Harry Styles’s fans will make of Mitski when she opens up for him on tour this summer. They’ll be in the zone for “Watermelon Sugar” highs, and 31-year-old Mitski Miyawaki is going to wallop them with experimental ennui. Though Laurel Hell finds her edging warily into the most poppy territory of her career, the mood of her sixth album is still despondent. She sounds like a sarky indie kid slumped against the wall at the school disco, wondering what the point is. “How do other people live? I wonder how they keep it up?” she asks over the Eighties pulse of “Love Me More”. “When I’m done singing this song/ I will have to find something else/ To do to keep me here…”
The tension between that craving for dance and the yearning to walk away dominates Laurel Hell. Tendon-snapping beats on bangers such as “Love Me More” are balanced by sulky dirges such as “I Guess” and “Everyone”, on which Mitski sounds (relatably) like she’s shut herself in the bathroom while the party outside rages on. She owns her contrariness: “Everyone said don’t go that way/ So of course I said/ I think I’ll go that way/ And I left the door open to the dark…”
