For Melancholy Brunettes (And Sad Women) by Japanese Breakfast | Album Review

The fourth album from the Philadelphia indie pop outfit retreats from pop bombast in favor of emotionally sensitive poetry.

For singer/songwriter/author Michelle Zauner, better known as head of the acclaimed indie pop project Japanese Breakfast, creation and grief have long been intertwined.

Zauner founded Japanese Breakfast in 2013, in the periphery of her main work as the frontwoman of the short-lived Philadelphia emo-rock band Little Big League. They released two albums in the early 2010s, but their momentum would quickly dissolve in 2014 when Zauner’s mother received a diagnosis of terminal cancer. She left Philly for her hometown of Eugene, Oregon to care for her until she passed later that year.

How she processed her feelings surrounding her mother’s death deeply informed her first two albums as Japanese Breakfast, 2016’s Psychopomp and 2017’s Soft Sounds From Another Planet. They would earn Zauner considerable acclaim, most notably for her eclectic production style and intensely personal lyrics.

Four years would go by before her next album Jubilee, which would see Zauner “embrace joy” and “go big,” in her words. It paid major dividends, the most commercially successful and critically lauded album in her discography thus far, and one I’m certainly a fan of. That same year, she also became a published author. Her memoir Crying In H Mart, exploring her feelings of grief through the lens of food, would spend 60(!!) weeks on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list.

Since then, another four years have passed, and we can see from the title of her fourth album For Melancholy Brunettes (And Sad Women) that Zauner has returned to her trademark reflective and wistful lyrics, but with a new perspective brought by the decade-plus since she began as Japanese Breakfast. She lets her guitar lead her as she explores themes of temptation, loneliness, and distance over her most meticulously assembled slate of music yet.

For evidence, just listen to the gorgeous “Leda,” a tender ballad led by finger-picked acoustic guitar with light background vocals creating an airy, open feeling. Over top, Zauner explores her estranged relationship with her father, feeling an unbreakable connection to him despite everything he’s put her through in the past:

Talking to you

It's nearly morning where you are

While my afternoons move so slow

Pacing the room

Awaiting a moment gone too far

And your special way of ruining the mood.

I also enjoy the country-tinged rocker “Mega Circuit,” which contains some of Zauner’s most scorching lines to date. She excoriates disaffected young men “plotting blood with their incel eunuchs,” accusing them of taking their cues from older men in the media instead of thinking for themselves, a twist on the theme of disconnection discussed in “Leda.”

And then there’s closing track “Magic Mountain,” a stunning chorus-less number laden with overwhelmingly beautiful string sections. Here, Zauner’s lyrics are at their most poetic, an evocative meditation on lasting love for someone who’s passed on:

Playing king, playing bride

Blooming in my leisure, slipping hours left uncounted

You and me, and soon ours

Bury me beside you in the shadow of my mountain.

But maybe the most unexpected moment on the album comes with “Men In Bars,” featuring none other than Jeff Bridges of The Big Lebowski. Despite the odd pairing, Zauner and Bridges’ voices complement each other well, and Bridges’ weary timbre perfectly fits the cinematic country vibe of the song. 

All that said, if you come into this record expecting to hear the infectious pop hooks of Jubilee, you may be left wanting. Lyrics and atmosphere definitely take the foreground in the writing of this album, leaving few catchy moments where you can turn your brain off and just groove. In that way, For Melancholy Brunettes (And Sad Women) feels like a spiritual sibling of Lucy Dacus’ recent album Forever Is A Feeling, which also largely eschews pop bombast for emotional sensitivity.

Still, there’s no denying that Japanese Breakfast continues to succeed at what they do best, balancing Zauner’s writerly lyrics with layer upon layer of musical beauty. With a little more punch, I have no doubt they can easily reach the heights of Jubilee once again.

Production: 7/10

Lyrics: 8/10

Songwriting: 6/10

Overall: 7/10

Favorites: Mega Circuit, Leda, Men In Bars, Magic Mountain

****************************************************************************

Thank you for reading! What did you think of this album? Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts and recommendations.