Mitski – ‘Nothing’s About to Happen to Me’ album review: A gorgeous descent into isolation
The dynamics between the inside and outside world are rarely explored in modern music, much less the interplay between the freedom of home life and all that ensues outside the safety of our familiar walls. On Nothing’s About to Happen to Me, Mitski captures these dichotomies in the setting of an unkempt house, messy and dirtied by the chaos of her own mind.
The Skinny: Nothing’s About to Happen to Me is, despite its complex evaluations of love, identity, and self-discovery, a record about isolation. A topic Mitski is no stranger to, with previous songs like ‘Nobody’, ‘Lonesome Love’, and even her viral smash hit ‘My Love Mine All Mine’, isolation is to Mitski an independent experience, through which all characters perform as side characters as she learns about her own existence.
A concept album that doesn’t necessarily always feel like one unless you place it under the microscope, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me tightens Mitski’s familiarity with melancholic, downbeat lessons in life and love with a narrative that bounces off outside and inside perspectives, taking the literal setting of her home as she slowly descends into madness.
Starting with ‘In a Lake’ – an atmosphere most will immediately recognise as Mitski’s usual sound – the singer feels more comfortable both physically and musically, setting the scene with a slow-paced, ambient foray into finding yourself in solitude. Isolation, at this point, and across many of the tracks, seems like the perfect embodiment of paradise – a place where you can exist outside the reach of anybody else, free to do whatever you want.
However, this becomes a more jarring concept as we go, especially as said isolation slowly becomes a conduit for that familiar, overthinking type of madness that intensifies through life’s more prickly experiences, like a breakup, or the wrong kind of encounter on a particularly bad day. On ‘Cats’, Mitski shares her desire to change for her partner, even though it’s probably impossible for her to do so.
This continues on ‘I’ll Change for You’, in which Mitski laments the desperation of grasping onto a lost love: “‘Cause I’ll do anything / For you to love me again / If you don’t like me now / I will change for you,” she sings. ‘Dead Women’ discusses impossible truths and the pretence of a relationship that yearns to discover the truth. “Would you have liked me better if I’d have died, so you could tell my story the way it ought to be?” she sings. “You’d find my parents and ask to see my things, rifle through it all, fill the blanks with what you need.”
Here, Mitski’s forlorn delivery often tinges her words with subtle satire, though even that feels too reductive for the complex world-building she achieves on this record. It’s one you have to sit with a few times, each listen giving you more and more to appreciate, even though you already know from the first listen that this is undoubtedly the singer at her best and most creative.
The Verdict: Building on the country, indie-pop sound of The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We and themes of sophisticated isolation and the ever-evolving search for oneself, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me sees Mitski enter a more conceptual, poetic realm, where the music’s charm stems from digging deeper into the layers beneath the surface. It’s complex, a little confusing at times, but filled with tiny pieces that make it fun to wonder where you fit within it all.
Standout Track: ‘Instead of Here’: “I looked up at the night sky, wondering, ‘Is this what it’s worth?’ The stars never answered back.”
Release Date: February 27th, 2025 | Producer: Patrick Hyland | Label: Dead Oceans
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out New Music Newsletter
All the latest New Music from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.