Japanese Breakfast ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women)’ Review: Transformative Sadness

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.” Singer-songwriter Michelle Zauner’s airy vocals settle perfectly atop a web of acoustic guitars—a core element of the album’s sonic palette and a lovely complement to Zauner’s natural timbre. Elsewhere, “Honey Water” feels mammoth, with pounding drums, a wall of guitars, and long, drawn-out distortion.

While Japanese Breakfast’s last two albums found Zauner playing with sci-fi literary references, For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) takes inspiration from European Romanticism. “The ocean in view, I’m thinking of all the Grecian gods, the men they all played to get what they want/A crashing of waves, a sculpture of Leda and the Swan, you wait,” she sings on “Leda.” Like the legend that inspires it, the song feels as ancient and open-ended as the atmospheric swells that circle shapelessly around its tender acoustic core.

Elsewhere, “Winter in LA” deftly channels Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound in a tribute to American pop-music classicism, replete with luxurious strings, booming drums, sleigh bells, and reverb-soaked wood blocks. Album opener “Here Is Someone” captures another sort of California dream, nodding to the music of Laurel Canyon with lush layers of acoustic guitars, strings, bells, and flutes. It’s only fitting, as the album itself was recorded at Sound City in Los Angeles—a favorite among ’70s folk rock icons like Neil Young and Fleetwood Mac.

But while For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) is largely concerned with the past, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t embrace contemporary sounds. The bluesy pedal steel that floats throughout “Picture Window” links the country-inflected track to the album’s spacier, more ambient moments. And “Men in Bars,” a reimagining of an older Zauner song (“Ballad 0” by Bumper), is transformed into a warm, country-bar ballad featuring Jeff Bridges on harmonies. The track is a testament to Zauner’s knack for seamless transformation.

For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) represents a significant sonic step forward for Japanese Breakfast—it’s the first of the band’s albums to be recorded in a proper studio—while preserving a familiar moody tone. The kind of melancholy that Zauner explores here isn’t simply sadness itself, but the possibility of sadness as fertile ground for transformation. “Once the fever subsides, I’ll return to the flatlands a new man,” Zauner sings on closing track “Magic Mountain,” framing melancholy not as something to escape, but to embrace—a chance to return renewed, and see beauty and hope more clearly than before.