Liz Miele’s Mind Over Melee Is Like a Long Conversation with a Close Friend

Liz Miele opens Mind Over Melee by announcing she just got back from shooting her first commercial. Before the audience has time to respond, she quickly adds: “Thank you so much.” It earned the first laugh from the crowd and from me. A lot of the album is like that, braggy in a way that’s wry enough to be charming—like Miele deciding she’ll learn to love herself, but only because she can’t afford $400 eyelash extensions.

If this album is your introduction to Liz Miele outside of her viral feminist sex positions joke, as it was mine, you’ll probably know if it’s your thing by the end of the first few minutes. She’s brutally honest and quick to point out hypocritical behavior in herself and others. Her unflinching look at her own issues—like anxiety and a family history of suicide—leads weight to her judgment of others. She’s able to go dark as easily as she complains about Facebook.

Miele started performing stand up at sixteen years old, and her experience comes across in how well-developed her observational humor is. She doesn’t just hate a couple she sees sharing an infinity scarf; she wants to know what their couples therapy sessions are like. She’s proud of being 100% Italian, but willing to acknowledge it also means that even though her parents aren’t cousins, “they might as well be.” She’s not exactly the first comic to point out the universal truths that couples are too much, anxiety sucks, and museums are boring, but more often than not Miele makes those familiar frustrations her own.