Praise for “Bug Like an Angel”
“Mitski has a gift for singing serenely about troubled thoughts and finding large implications in small images.” – New York Times
“Everything about [Mitski’s] new single, ‘Bug Like an Angel,’ is a surprise — like the timing, a mere year and a half after Laurel Hell, or the powerful choir that seems to materialize out of nowhere to echo her verses.” — Vulture, Best Songs of 2023 (So Far)
“No one writes dejection quite like Mitski, for whom resignation can be the subject of sparkling disco-pop, a genius anthemic chorus, or an intimate confession.” — Pitchfork
“‘Bug Like An Angel’ transforms Mitski’s soundtrack of loneliness and brokenness into something almost hymnal.” — NPR Music
“Mitski’s song about alcoholism still manages to extend a staggering amount of empathy to the afflicted” — NYLON
“A masterclass in negative space and what’s left unsaid.” – GRAMMY.com
“‘Bug Like An Angel’ is a return to Mistki’s first form. The guitar strums let Mitski’s voice shine for the first verse. But I gasped as the chorus brought in a beautiful choir. . . Her art is a constant surprise.” — Jezebel
“[‘Bug Like an Angel’ is] so stark and so beautiful” — Stereogum, Best Songs of the Week
“[‘Bug Like an Angel”] proves that Mitski can mine emotionality out of even her most low-key, stripped-back tunes.” — Consequence, Song of the Week
“A simple, four-chord acoustic strum coupled with [Mitski’s] gorgeous vocal is really all that’s needed here, and it’s wonderful to hear such a stripped down presentation, but it’s hard not to be deeply moved by the addition of a choir in its chorus, turning stark beauty into transcendence.” – Treble
Mitski, “once again assuming the posture of a clear-eyed sage nursing an age-old wound” (Pitchfork), will release her seventh album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We on September 15th via Dead Oceans. Today, she releases two new songs, ‘Star’ and ‘Heaven,’ following lead single, ‘Bug Like an Angel,, offering a further glimpse into The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, Mitski’s most sonically expansive, epic, and wise album to-date. Mitski wrote these songs in little bursts over the past few years, with both ‘Heaven’ and ‘Star’ dating back years and taking varied shapes before reaching their final iterations.
‘Star’ evokes an alien lift; its Scott Walker-inspired drone progressively building before an otherworldly organ takes over as Mitski sings “That love is like a star/It’s gone, we just see it shining/’Cause it’s traveled very far, I’ll/Keep a leftover light/Burning/So you can keep looking up/I am yours no matter.” ‘Heaven,’ with its Patsy Cline-swing and Old Hollywood vibe, offers a beautiful moment of passion and masterful display of hope. “Now I bend like a willow thinking of you/Like a murmuring brook curving about you/As I sip on the rest of the coffee you left/A kiss left of you/ Heaven, heaven, heaven,” sings Mitski, even though the “dark awaits us all around the corner.” Mitski worked with arranger and conductor Drew Erickson and a full orchestra at Sunset Sound Studios in Los Angeles to bring out the sweeping romance of these songs.
Watch Lyric Video for “Heaven”
The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We was recorded at both the Bomb Shelter in East Nashville and the aforementioned Sunset Sound Studios. For the first time, it felt important to Mitski to have a band recording live together in the studio. Working with her longtime producer Patrick Hyland, the album is informed by moments of noticing — noticing a sound that’s out of place, a building that groans in decay, an opinion that splits a room, a feeling that can’t be contained in a body.
The Land repeatedly offers the same hypothesis. Without love, is there anyone here? Love is always radical, which means that it always disrupts, which means that it always takes work to receive it. The album is full of the ache of grown-up, seemingly mundane heartbreaks and joys that are often unsung but feel enormous. From the bottom of a glass, to a driveway slushy with memory and snow, to a freight train barreling through the Midwest, and all the way to the moon, it feels like everything and everyone is crying out, screaming in pain, arching towards love. On The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, love is time-traveling to bless our tender days, like the light from a distant star. This land, which already feels inhospitable to so many of its inhabitants, is about to feel hopelessly torn and tossed again – at times, devoid of love. This album offers the anodyne.
Pre-order The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We
Watch the “Bug Like an Angel” Video
The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We Tracklist
1. Bug Like an Angel
2. Buffalo Replaced
3. Heaven
4. I Don’t Like My Mind
5. The Deal
6. When Memories Snow
7. My Love Mine All Mine
8. The Frost
9. Star
10. I’m Your Man
11. I Love Me After You
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