In the indie-pop scene, Japanese Breakfast remains quite the mystical collective, headed by the ever-talented lead singer and writer Michelle Zauner. Since 2016, the band has supplied album after album of earworm hitters, reaching their jubilant peak with 2021’s Jubilee.
After four years, the band’s fourth album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), is a soft return, laden with springtime sentimentality and romantic poetry. As a stripped-back endeavor, the orchestral wonder of strings and piano passages creates a reflective tapestry of grief, depression, and lovesickness.
Here is Someone weaves the first threads of tender reflection on building a vast life while dreaming of slow days and settling down with a sweetheart. Between the fragmented verses, flutes and guitars add woodland whimsy to the track, complementing the motif, “Life is sad and here is someone.”
In furthering love-luring lyricism, Orlando in Love embodies a poetic melancholy and a deep introspection on time passing. Infused with striking references to Virginia Woolf’s famous novel, Orlando, Zauner positions herself as the titular character, fluid in gender and desire. Just as Orlando spent centuries tempted into love before transforming and embodying it, Zauner ponders her life before transforming her melancholic outlook.
As much as the album wades in stripped-back, wistful waters, it knows how to pick up the tempo with Honey Water and even more excellently with Mega Circuit. Folksy and rustic, Mega Circuit cleverly plays on fragile masculinity and the cycle of men enabling misogyny and hatred in other men; a song like this speaks to the divisive rhetoric on gender and what it means to be a “real man.”
Picture Window paces itself in folk-pop fashion with a juxtaposition narrative on fearing death. Continuing the time-passing theme, Zauner contemplates her life in flashes and death awaiting her, reiterating, “All my ghosts are real, all of my ghosts are my home.”
Little Girl and Leda plunge into sentimental territories, this time exploring the perspective of a father estranged from his daughter. Little Girl heartbreakingly engages in father-daughter distance established through grief and lack of accountability from an alcoholic father who “meant no harm.” Meanwhile, Leda, a mosaic of Greek mythology references, finds a daughter responding to her father, still reluctant to untie the “Gordian-like knot” of their relationship. Even the distance between them, however, can’t stop worrying about her father spiraling into his addiction.
For any melancholy brunette or sad woman in love, hearing the opening line of Winter in LA, “I wish you had a happier woman, one that could leave the house,” may resonate painfully. In the throes of grief and solitude, Zauner wonders if she could be a happier woman for her partner, “writing the sweetest songs…for the man she loves.”
Magic Mountain feels like a hero’s journey home, returning from emotional toils and coming home safely to a loved one – the true embodiment of settling down as signified by twinkling bells and a rich cello. Zauner’s majestic word smithing reaches its pinnacle as she writes of “blooming in my leisure, slipping hours left uncounted / You and me, and soon ours.” Still connected to her grief, but not too concerned about the time she has left with someone she loves.
For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) is a grower; I think it took me the third listen to immerse myself emotionally in the storytelling – the best type of albums will always be the ones that do not click right away, but when they do, they do so everlastingly; this album more than fits that criteria perfectly.
For an album four years in the making, it beautifully engages in yearning balladry, refreshing Japanese Breakfast’s already transformative catalog. The band brings a rich feast of stylistic narratives on time and could-be sonnets on desire and longing, keeping a wonderful consistency and variety intact.
Rating: 9/10
Favorite Track(s): Here is Someone, Orlando in Love, Mega Circuit, Little Girl, Leda, Picture Window, Winter in LA, and Magic Mountain
Least Favorite Track: Men in Bars
