Japanese Breakfast
For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)
Release Date: Mar 21, 2025
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Dead Oceans
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Album Review: For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) by Japanese Breakfast
Very Good, Based on 8 Critics
Based on rating 9/10
In seemingly natural response to the breakthrough success of both 2021's Grammy-nominated Jubilee and her bestselling memoir Crying in H Mart, multitalented indie pop visionary Michelle Zauner (aka Japanese Breakfast) has crafted a remarkably enchanting and utterly intoxicating "comedown" record. In the tradition of Radiohead's Kid A, Björk's Vespertine, Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town, and The Smashing Pumpkins' Adore, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) ranks among such pivotal fourth albums released in the spectacular wake of major, career-defining masterpieces. Scaling back Jubilee's luminous bombast in favor of a nocturnally subdued sonic and thematic palette, For Melancholy Brunettes shifts its focus from its predecessor's themes of recovery, redemption, and joy, finding Zauner and her band exploring instead what she considers "the artist's condition"--melancholia.
Based on rating 4.5
Orchestral arrangements, guitars with just the right amount of reverb and Michelle Zauner’s wistful, sad vocals at the centre of everything – this is an album to luxuriate in It’s been almost four years since we last heard from Japanese Breakfast, a period in which the band and especially frontwoman Michelle Zauner seemed to leap up a level in name recognition. Their last album Jubilee garnered a whole host of nominations and awards, while Zauner’s memoir Crying In H Mart became a substantial critical and commercial hit. Suddenly, the quirky little bedroom pop act were a name to be reckoned with.
Based on rating 8/10
She prefers something profound, mature and, like her early works, depressing. To augment this abstract sadness, the guitar-oriented musical template well known in the indie landscape arrives at her feet, ready to be of use. For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), despite being her first album to be recorded at such a grand studio as Sound City, plays like an open session in the artist's salon.
Based on rating 4/5
The opening of Japanese Breakfast's 2021 album Jubilee found frontwoman Michelle Zauner standing atop a glittering peak of artistic endeavour, asking: 'How's it feel to stand at the height of your powers / To captivate every heart?' Now, nearly four years on, the American artist opens her follow-up fourth LP by finding comfort in darkness, the optimism and splendour of Jubilee melted away into a soft cosmic haze as she sings, 'Life is sad but here is someone'. Produced by Grammy winner Blake Mills, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) is awash with deep, velvety guitar, sultry strings and glinting piano. Lead single Orlando in Love is a panoramic, almost painterly retelling of a story from Italian Renaissance literature.
Based on rating 1/10
For Michelle Zauner, it had to be hard coming down from the high she was on following Japanese Breakfast’s breakthrough album Jubilee (2021) and bestselling memoir Crying in H Mart, released that same year. While both were acclaimed triumphs, fans were less surprised by Jubilee’s success than that of her tender and heartbreaking story. Everything suggested Japanese Breakfast would make it big sooner than later (as foreshadowed by their song “Jimmy Fallon Big!”).
Opinion: Absolutly essential
Every Japanese Breakfast album has enabled a space for Michelle Zauner to process life events and emotions, translating into uniquely comforting lyrics emphasised further by her soft and yearning vocal timbre. From the ghostly synths of 'Psychopomp' to the hypnotic sci-fi sonnets of 'Soft Sounds from Another Planet', the last four years have been spent hypothesising what conceptual route J-Brekkie would travel down post-'Jubilee'; a tenure that brought her bouts of overwhelming joy, accompanied by a rise to the upper echelons of indie stardom. Her newest, 'For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)', then, meshes the worlds of music and literature, taking inspiration from the story of Icarus - who, as we know, flew too close to the sun.
Opinion: Fantastic
Japanese Breakfast's fourth studio album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women), retreats from the poppy optimism of the group's 2021 breakthrough, Jubilee, and moves toward a mood similar to the comforting sadness of 2017's Soft Sounds from Another Planet. The album's production is imbued with a rich sense of depth and warmth, anchored by intricate interlocking guitars, long-tailed reverbs, and ambient orchestral arrangements. The most immediate song on the album, "Little Girl," boasts a spacious melody reminiscent of Soft Sounds from Another Planet's "Till Death.
Opinion: Excellent
It's fair to say that the last few years have been a bit of a whirlwind for Japanese Breakfast songwriter Michelle Zauner. After two albums of dreamy indie, 2021s pop-leaning 'Jubilee' saw Zauner catapulted into the cultural mainstream. Coupled that year with a heartbreaking memoir that spent 60 weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list and the Japanese Breakfast brand suddenly became Jimmy Fallon big.
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