Japanese Breakfast is undoubtedly one of indie rock’s heaviest hitters, but anyone hoping for a successor in the vein of Jubilee should turn back now; author, musician and singer Michelle Zauner is not in the business of predictability. Her new album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), is less about the singles than Zauner’s 2021 breakthrough. There’s no ecstatic pop anthem hit à la “Be Sweet,” or vulnerable come-hither moment like “Posing in Bondage.” Instead, this record falls closest to her gorgeous, subtly layered 2017 release Soft Sounds from Another Planet in terms of world building, if not sound. The synth-pop-meets-sci-fi vibe of Soft Sounds is a far cry from the orchestral grandeur of For Melancholy Brunettes, but both are the type of album that you don’t so much listen to as immerse yourself in it, letting it wash over you and bathe you in its brilliance.
Zauner’s new album is rife with literary and mythical references—to Leda and the swan, Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain (side note: Polish author Olga Tokarczuk has her own fascinating rework of Mann’s novel called The Empusium that is well worth your time), author John Cheever and Renaissance poet Matteo Maria Boiardo—but also weaves its own folklore. As a music reviewer, it’s my job to study albums and treat them as the rich texts they are, but few are as evidently poetic and carefully crafted as For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)—though the LP’s literary merits are no surprise, considering Zauner’s book Crying in H Mart is a New York Times bestseller.
There’s been much talk about this album being “baroque” in its sound, but I’d argue that of any artistic movement, For Melancholy Brunettes is more rococo in its flowery effusiveness—just listen to the charmingly childish hoot of the recorder over angelically plucked strings on opener “Here Is Someone.” Even in the album’s darker moments, it reminds one more of the faded, haunted beauty of an intricately decorated rococo drawing room gone to seed than the heavy contrast and bombast of the Baroque. “Here Is Someone” serves as an overture of sorts, both thanks to the luscious abundance of strings and the fact that it lays out the album’s central theme: her own guilt over wanting to pull back from the overwhelming reality of fame. “Quietly dreaming of / Slower days but I don’t want to / Let you down we’ve come so far / Can you see a life where we leave this behind?” she sings, and you can almost see her addressing her bandmates as she does so. This track also boasts one of her best lyrics to date due to its heart-wrenching simplicity: “Life is sad but here is someone.”
“Orlando in Love,” the album’s lead single, shows off Zauner’s cerebral songwriting, in particular how she imbues Japanese Breakfast’s melodies with symbolism. Producer Blake Mills’ guitars fill your ears from the start, and atmospheric sounds place you in the room with her—that is, until the chug of cellos and rapturous violins whisk you away to the seaside with Orlando. Zauner’s voice soars higher at the end of certain lines, achieving a kind of girlish bliss, and it’s no coincidence that it happens every time she invokes feminine perfection: “an ideal woman,” “Venus from a shell” and “sweetness of a mother.”
“Honey Water” is all metallic, taut guitar from the start—a shiny, silvery thing likely to catch a magpie’s eye. While the melody is sweet, it feels like it’s on a knife’s edge and could turn sour at any moment; is this merely honey water, or is it laced with poison? The narrator here is a woman whose husband cheats on her repeatedly, and Zauner compares him to an insect “insatiable for a nectar drinking til your heart expires.” The song becomes driving and hypnotically repetitive in the lead-up to the bridge—not unlike the husband with the wandering eye, who keeps making the same mistakes again and again—until a screeching guitar comes in, dissonant against the mellifluous backdrop. The gritty, noisy guitar stirs up trouble—possibly representing the man disrupting a peaceful home life, or the repressed scream the silently furious wife will never let herself emit.
Beyond the symbolism of the songwriting and the inherent richness of the lyrics, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) is one of Japanese Breakfast’s most self-referential works to date—both within the album itself, and Zauner’s catalog at large. Self-referential creations can often feel navel-gazey, but in this case, they’re more than a gimmicky collection of Easter eggs; these are connected moments that enrich the meaning behind songs and join them together into a cohesive body of work. “Winter in LA” is a spiritual sequel to the Soft Sounds track “Boyish,” in terms of its romantic, mid-century sway and the narrator’s desire to be a more appealing paramour. The alt-country incel exploration “Mega Circuit” acts as a focal point in the album, lending extra context to the following songs “Little Girl” and “Picture Window.” On “Mega Circuit,” Zauner ruminates, “Barreling round the mega circuit / Kicking mud off ATVs / Plotting blood with your incel eunuchs.” She brings back this rural imagery on “Little Girl”—a track ostensibly written from the perspective of Zauner’s estranged father (“Seven years of running at this break neck speed / Convalescing cheaply far abroad / Dreaming of a daughter who won’t speak to me”)—as she sings, “Drank the gin at noon and watched the ATVs / Rounding muddy corners until I found the strength to leave.” Perhaps this is the future that lies in wait for these frustrated young men if they never leave their hatred behind—one full of resentment and fractured relationships with the women in their lives.
“Picture Window” also lyrically calls back to “Mega Circuit”; “Well I better write my baby a shuffle good / Or he’s gonna make me suffer the way I should” she sings on the latter, an ominous threat just beneath the surface, while on the pedal steel-draped “Picture Window,” she croons, “My baby loves a port town / And a shuffle.” Here, Zauner is less concerned about the angry young men, and more about “the fear of loving someone so much you presage their loss,” as per a press release. Either way, though, we’re in the same world Michelle Zauner has so thoughtfully built, populated by that shuffle-loving baby and numerous others. How lucky we are to live in the shadow of Japanese Breakfast’s mountain.
Read Paste‘s recent Digital Cover Story with Japanese Breakfast.
Clare Martin is a cemetery enthusiast and Paste’s associate music editor.
