On the surface, this album might appear more like a challenging academic examination rather than the latest popular music project by an artist who just had a previous hit featured an international pop star. Broken across four separate movements and sung in thirteen languages, we have a breathtaking orchestral-influenced album that delves into female mystery, religious ascent, and bodily transformation, often through the lens of various female saints. The end of a relationship—a theme treated with grounded honesty elsewhere—is launched skyward on this record, buoyed by the constant sound of a full symphony orchestra and input from a Pulitzer-winning songwriter within a long roll call of collaborators. The pure ambition by itself makes the efforts of contemporary pop stars look rather modest.
Transcending Academic Exercise
The fact that Lux manages to escape overly intellectual chin-stroking is nearly a miracle, and complete credit going to the artist. While this is not her first album to alchemize historical sounds and modern styles, the stakes feel much greater on Lux, with the tightrope walk more dramatic. What truly elevates this fourth release, beyond its multilayered melodies, dense compositions, and engrained drama, proves to be an essential spirit of joy. Similar to the legendary Björk at her peak, you find a wondrous sense to Rosalía's voice that pulls the listener up in its tornado. When she is tearing hearts apart, you nevertheless want to stay alongside her through the journey.
A Signature Example of Exuberance
That exuberant spirit comes forth clearly during the stunning piano-led ballad inspired by a saint. It luxuriates in a string-drenched melancholy for more than four minutes. Suddenly, all the music falls away, and we hear a gleeful giggle followed by a declaration prior to a hilariously over-the-top orchestral crescendo thuds in with cartoonish force. The track then shifts to the frenetic single featuring galloping strings, an imposing choir, and a surprise appearance from the artist Björk.
"The magic with this album lies in the listener never exactly know—or even want to predict—what it is going to next."
Nearly each song finishes at a totally different place from how it started. One moment examines the transient trappings of celebrity with a featherlight symphony only to disintegrating into electronic cacophony. Elsewhere, a cut that recalls the artist's previous rhythmic work begins out dark and brooding, with menacing vocals, until sudden traditional handclaps and a heavenly chorus arrive to soften its rough edges.
The Bridge Of Experiment and Pop
Another crucial balancing act of the album is straddling the line between radical experimentation and broad appeal. This is no surprise that it has become her highest-charting work to break into the Top 5 of major markets: its heart contains a collection of utterly catchy hits. One track sung primarily in the English language swells around a chorus that feels to collect increasingly nagging melodies while it spins upward. That trick gets repeated on another powerful ballad that grows and contracts, intertwining layered melodies as a complex tapestry.
- A waltz-like number seduces with its playful, theatrical drama and a chant-along hook.
- Lyrically, it shares the pop culture impact of contemporary breakup anthems, lambasting a former lover labeled an "psychological terrorist".
- Throughout the album, the vocals have a painted-on edge, like a fairy-tale character hiding a blade: "Gold medal in being a motherfucker / You've won the trophy of disappointment."
An Opulent Feast for the Ears
This album represents pop on a grand scale, a hungry grasp for capital-A Art amid of looming artificial blankness. It rejects solipsism in favor of glorious transcendence, creating a dramatic spectacle that masterfully controls its inherent ridiculousness. It is a deep well of hidden gems that takes time to fully explore but never seem like a chore. Where some big pop albums of the year felt like feasting on scraps, this record offers a lavish feast at which the guests around it, some tipsy on sacred wine, flutter between conversations about ancient saints, the galvanizing sensation of soul-shattering sadness, and common gossip about hopeless partners. In essence, it's a contemporary theatrical production from music's truly restlessly creative visionary.
