- After the untimely demise of her highly regarded retro-pop outfit Totally Mild, Elizabeth Mitchell was never going to pack up that big voice of hers and walk away from the game. God, maybe she could have, but thank goodness she didn’t. Her full-length, solo debut, features many of the things that made her music great in the past, but also a few significant departures. It also struggles to contain the emotional turmoil that’s surged through recent chapters of Elizabeth’s life. There’s a lot of action in this Wonderful World Of Nature.
I’m not quite sure about the name though. I keyword searched the lyrics for the word ‘nature’ and it doesn’t even appear; odd! Nevertheless elsewhere Elizabeth has managed to sum up what this record’s about quite neatly and that’s “my aesthetic hyper-feminine fun princess who is sad”. In that vein, this record is a whirl of emotion: love and its desolate aftermath produce grinding melancholia one moment and a euphoric sense of freedom the next. It’s in nearly every song. Take this tract from the album opener: “Beautiful baby / You say that I’m crazy / And you’re not wrong / But you’re here with your body / Say you made me somebody / How can I move on? / But if not with you well then with who? / If this is broke then what is true? / Beautiful baby / You say that I’m crazy / I think I’m strong / Because how could you love me / From so far above me / I’m done holding on.” It’s just about wild enough to give you whiplash, especially when delivered by a diva like Elizabeth.
It’s not just the vocals which roar like a jet engine either, but, thanks to a very different production aesthetic, every element is loud. John Castle lavishes reverb on the lot in a way that’s not at all like what James Cecil did for the production on Totally Mild’s 2018 album, Her. Whatever else you might say about the members of Totally Mild, they were incredibly talented musicians and Cecil’s treatment allowed them to ring out with a delicate perfection. Totally Mild toured with Belle & Sebastian -a band with which they had a lot in common- and the retro-pop stylings of both groups owe a debt to NME’s highly influential C86 compilation, which was filled with exactly that sort of subtle loveliness. Elizabeth is still as old-fashioned as any ‘60’s girl group (indeed while I think she plays all the instruments here herself, her touring band is all female) but it’s amazing what a difference the production makes. Delicate this isn’t, but it is lush in the extreme and sometimes to a fault. Elizabeth’s voice is already so large she doesn’t really need any help, but the ever-present reverb can overcook the effect, resulting in a timbre that's muddy and lurid. I had wondered if Castle (whose credits include Vance Joy and Cub Sport) was creating something too commercial but that’s not it. Instead this is along the lines of the shoegaze-pop work he’s done with Hatchie, although every time I listen to The Wonderful World Of Nature I get the strongest echoes of the similarly lush, retro and loud sound of the Dum Dum Girls.
From the evidence of this album, the world Elizabeth Mitchell knew hasn’t even finished crashing into ruin. It quakes with emotion, threatening to throw everything down again, even as she tirelessly pushes forward, building a new sound, a new career, a new life. Her music-making has always been so strong that it should be no surprise that -minor reservations aside- she rises, phoenix-like, from the fire. The Wonderful World Of Nature might be in violent disarray, but Elizabeth is both the force that tumbles its foundations and the power that builds them right back up again.
- Chris Cobcroft.