On the surface, this album may look more like an arduous scholarly examination than the latest pop project from a musician whose last hit featured a global pop star. Split into 4 different sections and performed in 13 tongues, this is a dizzying orchestral-influenced album investigating feminine mystique, religious transcendence, and corporal transformation, often via the prism of different women saints. The end of a love affair—a theme handled with grounded openness elsewhere—soars skyward here, buoyed by the lush presence of a full symphony orchestra and input from an award-winning composer within a vast list of collaborators. The pure ambition alone renders the work of contemporary artists appear rather laughable.
Rising Above Academic Exercise
The fact that this album manages to transcend overly academic posturing is nearly a miracle, and complete praise belonging to Rosalía. While this is not her first project to blend the past with the present, its stakes are far higher here, and the balancing act more precarious. The element that really raises her fourth release, outside of its multilayered tunes, rich arrangements, and inherent theatricality, is a core sense of joy. Much like the iconic artist at her height, there is a captivating quality to the vocalist's voice that pulls you up in its whirlwind. When she is breaking your heart in two, you nevertheless desire to stay alongside her for the ride.
A Signature Moment of Exuberance
That playful energy comes forth brightly during a stirring piano-led ballad about a saint. It bathes in a sorrowful melancholy for more than four moments. Then, all the music falls away, to reveal we hear a gleeful laugh and a declaration prior to a hilariously exaggerated orchestral surge thuds down with cartoonish force. The song immediately shifts to the wild track featuring galloping strings, a powerful choir, and a surprise appearance from the artist herself.
"The magic of Lux lies in the listener rarely exactly know—nor wish to know—where it will go next."
Almost every track finishes in a totally different place than where it began. A track explores the transient nature of celebrity with a featherlight orchestration before disintegrating into electronic cacophony. Another, a cut that recalls the artist's previous rhythmic style starts out moody and brooding, with prowling beats, before fluttering flamenco rhythms and a heavenly chorus enter to soften the song's jagged corners.
The Bridge Of Experiment & Accessibility
Another crucial achievement of the album involves navigating the gap of radical experimentation and mainstream accessibility. This is no surprise that it has achieved her first release to crack the upper reaches of major charts: its heart contains a suite of truly undeniable pop songs. One track performed primarily in the English language swells on a refrain that seems to gather more and more nagging melodies as it spirals skyward. This feat gets echoed on a different expansive ballad that grows and constricts, intertwining layered melodies like an intricate tapestry.
- A dance-infused song charms with its playful, theatrical flair and an anthemic hook.
- Lyrically, it shares the cultural honesty of other heartbreak songs, eviscerating an ex- lover labeled an "psychological bully".
- Across the album, the singing have a sharp edge, like a fairy-tale character hiding a knife: "Top prize in being a scoundrel / You've the podium of disappointment."
An Opulent Banquet for the Ears
This album is pop on a grand scale, an ambitious grasp for high Art amid of looming artificial blankness. It rejects self-absorption for sublime transcendence, creating an over-the-top drama that masterfully manages its built-in excess. This is an abundant well of hidden gems that takes time to completely mine but doesn't seem like a chore. Where some major releases of the year felt like feasting on scraps, Lux is a lavish banquet at which the guests around the table, some intoxicated on holy wine, flit between conversations about historical figures, the galvanizing feeling of heartbreaking grief, and shared gossip about hopeless partners. It is a modern-day musical from music's most restlessly inventive visionary.
