The Japanese-American indie artist Mitski Miyawaki’s newest LP is her most mainstream pop release to date, with big 80s piano ripples and echoes of Abba and even Hall & Oates, but also brilliantly laced with dark images and emotions laid bare. The lush, opulent style matches her richly mature voice, which has an intangible presence and authority about it, the song Heat Lightning having some parallels with the delivery of Lana Del Rey. Disturbingly gripping openers Valentine, Texas in which we hear of “stepping into the dark … with wet teeth”, and Working For The Knife, an later Everyone, set a slow, paced sense of foreboding, but the more upbeat singles, despite their desperate emotions described, Heartbreaker and Love Me More, as well as Should’ve Been Me, bring the classic combination of dark situation with joyously surging pop melody. Classy, strong, powerful, and surely a release to that will bring her to a wider audience. Out on Dead Oceans.
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