At first glance, Lux may look more like a difficult academic examination than the latest popular music project by a musician who just had a last single was a collaboration with an international pop icon. Divided across 4 distinct movements and performed in thirteen tongues, this is a breathtaking symphonic opus investigating female mystique, spiritual ascent, and physical change, often by way of the perspective of different female saints. The end of a love affair—a theme treated with raw openness elsewhere—soars skyward here, buoyed by the constant sound of a full orchestra and contributions from an award-winning composer within a vast roll call of contributors. Its sheer daring by itself makes the work of contemporary artists look quite small.
Rising Above Scholarly Pretense
The fact that Lux manages to avoid dry academic posturing feels nearly a miracle, and full credit going to Rosalía. Although it's not her first project to blend the past with modern styles, the stakes are much higher on Lux, with the tightrope walk far more dramatic. The element that truly raises her fourth release, outside of its complex melodies, dense compositions, and engrained drama, is a core sense of fun. Similar to the legendary Björk at her peak, you find a wondrous quality to the vocalist's singing that pulls the listener up in its tornado. Even when she's breaking your heart apart, you nevertheless desire to be right there through the ride.
A Signature Moment of Joy
That exuberant spirit comes forth brightly on a stunning Italian song about Saint Clare. It bathes in a string-drenched melancholy for several minutes. Suddenly, everything falls away, to reveal there's a spontaneous giggle followed by a comment prior to a hilariously over-the-top orchestral crescendo thuds in like cartoonish impact. The track then shifts into the frenetic single featuring galloping strings, an imposing choral group, and a surprise role from the artist herself.
"The charm of this album is that you never quite know—or even want to know—where it is going to next."
Almost each track concludes in a totally different place from how it began. One moment explores the transient trappings of celebrity with a delicate orchestration before collapsing into electronic chaos. Elsewhere, a song that recalls the artist's earlier rhythmic work begins out dark and brooding, featuring menacing beats, until sudden flamenco rhythms and an angelic chorus arrive to smooth the song's jagged corners.
The Bridge Of Experiment & Pop
Another crucial achievement on the album involves navigating the line between radical innovation and mainstream appeal. This is little surprise that the album has achieved the artist's first release to crack the Top 5 of key charts: at its core a suite of truly catchy pop songs. A song sung entirely in English swells around a refrain that feels to gather more and more infectious melodies while it spins skyward. That feat is repeated by a different expansive track that expands and contracts, weaving multiple tunes as an intricate weave.
- A dance-infused number seduces with its playful, Disney-adjacent drama and an anthemic chorus.
- In its words, it aligns with cultural honesty of other heartbreak anthems, eviscerating an ex- lover described as an "psychological terrorist".
- Across the album, the vocals have a sharp edge, akin to a fairy-tale character hiding a knife: "Gold medal in acting like a motherfucker / You have the podium of disappointment."
An Opulent Feast for the Ears
This album is pop on a grand scale, a hungry grasp for high Art in an era of looming AI-generated blankness. It eschews solipsism for glorious transcendence, crafting an over-the-top drama that masterfully controls its own built-in ridiculousness. This is an abundant well of buried gems that requires time to fully explore but doesn't feels like hard work. While some big releases of the year felt like a meager meal, this record is a lavish banquet where the characters at it, some tipsy on sacred wine, flutter between conversations about historical figures, the galvanizing sensation of heartbreaking grief, and shared stories about useless partners. In essence, it's a contemporary musical from music's truly endlessly inventive visionary.
