There are only maybe three particularly showy moments on Puberty 2: thrumming but deliberately unresolved opener "Happy" (stronger-the-second-time chorus, strutting saxophones and all), the starrily soft-loud anthemic crash of "Your Best American Girl" and soulful trip-hop throwback "Crack Baby". And those are three seriously good songs.
But what makes the album actually quite spectacular is what's going on all around them, on a set of discontents during which Mitski sometimes comes across like a more rock-minded Lisa Germano and with the same sense of off-kilter, bruised-sounding melody and musicality ("I Bet On Losing Dogs" being the best example), with each song - most somewhere in that sweet spot of less than three minutes - bringing something a bit different and working as a miniature epic of one kind or another in its own right.
But what makes the album actually quite spectacular is what's going on all around them, on a set of discontents during which Mitski sometimes comes across like a more rock-minded Lisa Germano and with the same sense of off-kilter, bruised-sounding melody and musicality ("I Bet On Losing Dogs" being the best example), with each song - most somewhere in that sweet spot of less than three minutes - bringing something a bit different and working as a miniature epic of one kind or another in its own right.
